


No Place Like Home

by notsofriendlyghosts



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anxiety/Depression - Moderate, Anxious Art Kid Levi, Bullying/Fighting, Demisexual Character, Dumb but still relevant chapter titles, Explicit Language, Football Player Erwin, Genderqueer Character, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mention of recreational drug use, Mentions of past abuse, Slice of Life, Underage Drinking, Underage Smoking, genderqueer hanji, music references, rating will eventually go up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-19
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-02-21 17:32:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 89,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2476505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notsofriendlyghosts/pseuds/notsofriendlyghosts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi had pretty much been alone for as long as he could remember, and moving to a new school definitely didn't help that. It wasn't like he meant to isolate himself, that's just how things happened. </p><p>He didn't want anybody and nobody wanted him.</p><p>But maybe the tall blond football player he ran into could change that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Pudding That Launched a Thousand Fistfights

“ _Ugh_.”

He didn’t want to be here. Anywhere, but this fucking zoo.

Levi didn’t even have to raise his eyes to notice the chaos going on around him—a bunch of high-schoolers acting like savages, cooped up like chickens in the school’s less-than-spacious cafeteria. He seriously debated going to sit outside, but the prospect of freezing in the rain wasn’t exactly all that appealing either.

So, he reluctantly settled for staying where he was in the far left corner of the room, at his table occupied only by himself.

Levi didn’t find it strange that in the packed cafeteria, his was the only empty table. He was a “new kid.” Nobody ever sat with the fucking new kid. All these people established their friend-groups freshman year—a luxury Levi didn’t have after being dumped into this school as a junior. It was only a few weeks into the school year and he didn’t have a single friend.

But he didn’t really expect to have any anyways. He wasn’t exactly someone who could be deemed “approachable.”

He pulled his hood down a little further, tugging his headphones out from the neck-hole of his hoodie and fitting them snugly into his ears. Shoving a hand into his front pocket, he hit play on his iPod in a well-practiced motion and sighed with relief at the familiar cadence of drums and driving guitars that blared to life.

He let himself revel for a moment in his mini-getaway before turning his attention back to his untouched lunch. He looked down his nose at his questionably-edible school-issue grilled cheese, cut down the middle like the way his nanna cut his sandwiches. She always cut his sandwiches wrong.

Levi picked up a half, took a bite, and almost immediately tossed it back on his tray. Nope. It wasn’t a question anymore. Definitely not edible.

This was the most decent school he’d been to so far and he’d thought they’d at least have a halfway decent menu—guess not. Now all he wanted was to get home so he could make himself food that didn’t taste like peasant scraps and cardboard.

He needed to eat something at least, though. He grabbed the only other thing on his tray—a chocolate pudding cup—and tried to open it, only succeeding in ripping the tab off of the lid that sealed it.

“This fucking…piece of shit,” he grouched, picking at the foil lid with his short fingernails and trying to find some sort of purchase. Levi quickly gave up out of frustration and grabbed his spoon, stabbing it into the lid and prying it back, before returning to his efforts to peel it off.

Success…but with casualties. He sneered at his thumb—pudding on the side of it—and wiped at it meticulously with his napkin as the song he was listening to ended and was replaced by the quieter beginning of the next.

The relaxing bassline, the quiet drawl of the singer... Beautiful. His head lolled slightly, side to side with the melody. Music was the only thing he could really rely on to put himself in a better mood.

He didn't really like to admit it to himself, but he needed to relax more. Levi was so high-strung all the time, which was undoubtedly a cause of his misfortunes at his previous schools. Skipping class, talking back, getting in fights, isolating himself...he had enough anxieties as it was.

School only added to that. People— _teenage peers_ —definitely added onto that. He sometimes thought that making a friend or two might help him ease some of his tension, but to be honest, trying to make new friends was more of a stressful endeavor than he would like it to be. So he just didn't even bother anymore.

He scooped up a spoonful of pudding and contemplated it for a moment before he flipped the spoon upside-down and stuck it in his mouth. He sucked at it idly, the handle of the spoon resting against his chin. Not bad...at least the generic pudding cups at this school were okay. He pulled the spoon away, his bottom lip catching anything remaining.

“ _Dreams are made winding…through my heeeaaad_ ,” Levi mumbled softly under his breath with the song, licking his lips and dipping his spoon back into the pudding cup. Just one more class after lunch and he could go home. He could survive. He lifted the spoon to his mouth again but nearly dropped it when the shrill school bell pierced through the din of the cafeteria.

He thought it was chaos before, but it increased twofold as everyone tried to shove past each other and squeeze through the only exit—a pair of doors by Levi's table in the back.

Scooting around the backside of his table to avoid the river of people, he took his pudding cup from the tray and dumped the rest of his disappointing lunch into the trash bin. He took a moment to get another spoonful of chocolate decentness before deciding to head out to his last class.

This school really was his last chance. If he cut class and fucked around again, his nanna would kill him. Turning, he continued to mumble the lyrics of the song around the spoon in his mouth.

" _Befooore you know I will be waiting all awaaa_ -aughk!" Levi choked on his spoon when he smacked bodily into something solid. He stiffened sharply when he felt a large hand on the middle of his back, but the contact disappeared just as quickly as it came.

"Oh! Sorry, man. You okay?"

Levi stared at the guy. Or rather, at his chest, since that was all that was at his eye level. Damn, he was tall…which really wasn't saying much considering Levi was only 5'1", but that was beside the point. Levi snapped out of his trance, realizing how much he was staring at the thick muscles pressing against the thin, grey cotton T-shirt he wore. He was just staring, neither of them moving or saying anything. An embarrassed blush slowly crept up the back of his neck and to his ears, and he was suddenly thankful for the hood he still had up.

"Whatever," Levi replied hastily as he ducked around him. He didn't bother to look at the guy's face as he headed for the doors, or meet the pair of piercing blue eyes that followed his lazy gait to the hallway.

Levi made his way to his locker—located more toward the middle of the long hall that stretched across the length of the school's first floor—and pulled the spoon out of his mouth again. He let out a long breath he hadn't realized he had been holding.

"Damn idiots…don't watch where they're fucking going," he grumbled to himself, still a little embarrassed.

He didn't really know anyone at this school…didn't know what they were like. If they were the same as the kids at the other schools he'd been to—where staring in the general direction of some "tough guy" meant you were asking for your teeth knocked in—he didn't know how long he would last. He could hold his own for sure, but those kinds of people pissed Levi off to no end. He was so tired of them and their bullshit. He didn't want any more of it.

He made to angrily stuff more pudding into his mouth but looked down at his hand, confused. It was empty. Did he fucking drop his pudding? He paused for a brief moment and looked at his locker door with a deadpan expression, as if it had just dared to utter to him the worst Dad Joke imaginable.

Whatever. He probably dropped it on that guy; it was his problem now. Levi just hoped that wasn't fuel for another idiotic fight. He had avoided that so far and he'd be damned if he got kicked out of this school because of goddamn chocolate pudding.

The locker door opened with a harsh, metallic squeak as Levi swiftly snatched out his plain black backpack and slung it over his shoulder before slamming the door shut again. His locker didn't have a lock on it; he never bothered to get one. He probably put too much trust in the hope that no one would take his stuff, but he never kept anything of too much importance in there anyways.

Although, he wouldn't put it past that asshole, Nile, to take his stuff just for the hell of it; that jackass had been on his ass since day one. He was more of a nuisance than a threat at the moment, though, so Levi just tried to ignore him. Avoidance was key to his survival of two more shitty years in high school.

He took a deep breath, eyes closed.

He had art next. That was good—a class that wasn't too hard for him, and one he could spend doing something that would distract him from everything else around him.

Turning on his heel, he trudged up the staircase to the second floor, his Converse squeaking lightly against the shiny linoleum floor.

The bell rang right as he slipped through the doorway, and he sat at his assigned table before the teacher turned away from the board at the front of the classroom. Mr. Whatever-His-Name-Was began explaining the next lesson to the class: "Elements of Design" blah blah, "Color Wheel" blah blah, "paint on paper" blah blah. Color & Design really wasn't that hard to understand; he didn't get how people were failing this class already.

Look at the guidelines. Color the thing. Done.

The assignments were easier than the lessons made them out to be, and the teacher was relatively easy to please, so Levi always did something simple yet effective. In this assignment, despite all the information the teacher threw at his students, they only had to use 3 Elements of Design and they had until the end of next week to do it. If he started now he could probably finish on Monday when they came back from the weekend. Easy. As. Pie.

Even though he would've liked to keep both headphones in to block everyone out while he worked, he took one out in case the teacher called on him. He had already been scolded once about it and wanted to avoid another useless hassle. He scooted his chair back, the loud scraping sound making him cringe, and leisurely made his way to the back of the classroom to sift through his bin of art supplies.

This class wasn't as packed as his other ones; there were group tables that sat around six people each, and they were spread around the room a good distance from each other. Even so, it was still a little rowdy and loud sometimes, which made the familiar jitters of anxiety settle in Levi's chest.

He was thankful for his table, though. He sat in the middle of the side with the least traffic behind him, by one of the counters. The only other people at his table were two girls that sat across from him, but he didn't really have to worry about them. The two were foreign exchange students that seemed to be good friends, and usually they just chatted with each other in Chinese—not too loud or obnoxious—and paid him no attention apart from the occasional, "Could you pass me a brush?"

Levi pulled his bin from the slot it was tucked into, jostling things around as he searched for and grabbed the few items he needed.

On his way back to his seat he filled the plastic cup that he had grabbed with a quick burst of water from the faucet and ripped a sheet of watercolor paper out of one of the pads on the back counter.

He gently placed the cup of water down, careful not to spill, and dumped the rest of his supplies in front of himself as he sat back down. He could get away with doing this project quickly and in small steps. The sooner he got done with this mundane garbage, the sooner he could spend the rest of his time buried in his sketchbook, creating whatever he pleased.

Hurried footsteps from a pair of wet squeaking shoes skidded to a halt in front of the classroom door, catching the attention of Levi's ears. He didn't look up from the watercolor palette he was activating with quick dabs of his wet paintbrush.

"Can I help you, young man?"

"Ah, yes. Sorry, sir. I'm transferring into this class if I can get your approval signature? I need to rearrange classes for football."

"Not exactly a good start, coming in…" The teacher paused to presumably glance at the wall clock. "Sixteen minutes late."

Levi smirked at that, taking pleasure in this guy getting reprimanded already even though he technically wasn't even in the class yet. He continued dabbing water onto the blue and purple colors in his palette, trying to decide how he wanted to mix them.

"I'm sorry, it won't happen again. I was getting pudding off my shoes funnily enough," the guy explained, ending his apology with a soft chuckle.

Levi's smirk fell from his face in an instant and his eyes flashed up to look at the guy for the first time. Tall, muscled, thin grey T-shirt. Fffff _fuck_.

The teacher looked at him critically for a moment before agreeing and signing his paper. "I'll give you a week to make up the other two assignments but you still have to turn everything in like everyone else. Go ahead and take a seat at table six in the back there," he instructed, gesturing vaguely to Levi's table.

"Great. Thank you, sir," the guy nodded, taking a few handouts from the desk. When he turned to see which table was his, his eyes met Levi's and he tilted his head ever-so-slightly, giving him a contemplative, knowing look.

Levi's eyes wavered when those blue eyes met his gaze. His jaw clenched and he ripped his eyes away, sinking down in his seat.

Fuck.

Shit.

Fucking shit.

He didn't want any trouble. He really didn't. Levi sunk a little lower, hiding the lower half of his face in his sweatshirt and glaring down at his blank art paper.

A chair scraped against the floor to his right. He chanced a glance at the guy and was met with that piercing gaze fixed on him again. That stare sent a dull buzz of anxiety through Levi's body, making him swallow hard.

He broke the eye contact to look down at the large hand moving toward him, then glanced back up to the eyes again.

"Hi," he greeted politely with his hand extended, "I'm Erwin."

Levi looked down at the hand again and frowned a bit.

Really? No "What the fuck, man?" No conflict? No drama? No…anything?

He sat up a bit, shifting uneasily.

"L…Levi," came his reply, brusquely shaking the hand in front of him. He took a moment to quickly look over Erwin.

He truly did look like a football player, and honestly didn't look like much of a high schooler—broad, tall, and filled-out with decently-defined muscle. He kind of had a big nose, but it fit his face and his strong jaw well. His brows stood out, thick and angled, but Levi found something intriguing about them. His dark blond hair was styled in a cut almost like his own, but it was in disarray, like he'd been running his fingers through it recently.

Still, there was a softness to him—although he couldn't decide if it was a physical trait so much as just his demeanor showing through. That softness was one of the only things that made him look really young, and Levi couldn't help but think that Erwin was… _handsome_.

Erwin gave him a small awkward smile and Levi realized that his quick look had turned into staring again. Their hands were still grasped together but Levi had long since stopped shaking his hand. Levi snatched his hand away and turned back to his work.

It was a moment before Levi continued, feeling like he should say something about the "pudding incident." Erwin hadn't mentioned anything about it but Levi was sure Erwin knew it was him that he had run into.

"Sorry…about your shoes," he said to his paint set. He saw Erwin turn toward him out of the corner of his eye.

He laughed lightly, and Levi found the soft sound of it quelling the anxiety tight in his chest. "Don't worry about it, Levi. It's not that big of a deal."

A flutter of something else flitted through his chest when he heard Erwin say his name, but he shoved the feeling away. Levi didn't say anything more, focusing his attention instead on wetting the paper in front of him and swirling it with color.

The rest of the class passed with relative ease. Erwin didn't try to make any lasting conversation, which Levi appreciated to some degree. He only asked a question here or there about an assignment, leaving the rest of their time in a comfortable silence.

Levi colored his paper with greens, blues, and violets—a swirling abstract mass of color. He took a piece of cling wrap from one of the supply drawers and placed it over the top of the wet paper, scrunching it in places so it left random geometric spots where the wrap clung to the moisture. He set the finished paper on the drying rack and called it a day.

From that point, Levi spent the rest of his time doodling in his sketchbook, taking some time to practice facial features. He made a page of just eyes, glancing around the room and sketching out any interesting expressions he found in his semi-realistic cartoony style. He tried to avoid drawing Erwin's, though. Levi already found his gaze flicking back to Erwin's face enough as it was, and he didn't want to draw any more attention to himself.

When the bell finally rang, he hastily stuffed his things back into his bag, ready to go the fuck home.

"See you later."

Levi paused. Was Erwin talking to him? He looked tentatively over his shoulder, already halfway to the door. Erwin was standing behind his chair, packing his things back into his own bag. He looked up and smiled that small smile at Levi again, raising a hand in farewell. No one ever said goodbye to him…

Levi felt flustered by the gesture and turned to briskly walk back toward the door, waving his hand aimlessly over his shoulder. That's all that blond bastard would get in terms of reciprocity.

He practically jumped down the stairs, back to the first floor, and glanced out the windows as he dodged his way around people to get to the front doors. The heavy rain from earlier had let up to a light drizzle. Good. He could make his journey home with less chance of freezing.

After being dumped in this little town, he had come to realize just how much it rained—it was almost perpetual. He thought he should probably invest in an umbrella sometime soon, but for the moment he just shifted himself inside his oversized hoodie, hands in his front pocket, and started his trek home. He put his other earbud back in and let his mind go wherever as he immersed himself in his music again.

As far as Levi knew, he was kind of an introvert. He liked being alone…most of the time. He still craved some human contact once in a while, but after moving out here for school—by himself—he'd never felt so physically alone.

His nanna was the only person in his family who still cared about him, and cared for him. He had lived with her for the past seven or so years, but after all the trouble he'd gotten into, he had to live out here to go to this last school.

He lived in a little cottage-type house—more of a small vacation home for his Nan that she was letting him live in. Sure, she'd come down and visit once in a while, but it was a few hours' drive from the city, which was a trip she didn't always have the time or energy for.

Levi breathed deeply and sighed to himself, taking in the damp smell of earth and rain, the chill of the air nipping at his face. His feet splashed in little puddles on the pavement as he walked, sometimes kicking at them on purpose even though he knew it'd soak into the canvas of his shoes. He'd just have to get used to that lonely feeling now, he supposed.

He took his time getting home despite the nagging hunger in his belly; he only picked up his pace the last few minutes of his journey when the rain started to come down heavier again. He looked up at the clouds and thought it looked like it would be another particularly stormy night.

Levi reached his home, taking shelter under the quaint little porch. He stamped his feet on the coarse mat in front of the door to shake himself of excess water, unlocked the door, and went inside.

"I'm home," he called out sarcastically into the empty house. Obviously he didn't expect any answer. If he did get an answer, he'd have bigger problems than being a sixteen-year-old boy living by himself like a loser.

Levi knelt down and unlaced his shoes, leaving the wet miscreants by the door. He tossed his backpack carelessly by the coffee table in the main room of his house.

The house wasn't anything spectacular, but it was cozy: a living room, two bedrooms (only one of which was used as a proper bedroom), a kitchen, a bathroom, a one-car garage (with no car), the small porch out front and a nice little backyard. It was a home suited for one or two people, maybe a small family.

Cozy. But lonely.

His Nan was hours away, he didn't have any siblings to live with, he didn't have any pets (unless he counted that shitty cat that came around sometimes). He didn't have any friends to come over.

His mind flashed him a quick memory of Erwin and he had to scoff at himself. Yeah, right. What did he have in common with some huge football jock? Why would he ever want to be friends with Levi? He didn't _do_ anything. He wasn't _interesting_. He was just some little, ill-tempered gay kid that sat by himself all the time. Not that he was "out" or anything; he didn't think that would help his cause much either.

Levi looked over the front room and heaved a slow sigh before making a quick trip to the garage to toss his hoodie in the dryer. He thought about what he should do for the rest of the night as he stepped into his room to change his clothes.

Homework? He peeled out of his damp skinny jeans and socks. _Nah_.

Cleaning? He shucked off his T-shirt and boxers.  _Nah_.

Make a good dinner? He put on a clean pair of boxer briefs and a loose pair of dark grey sweatpants. _Nah_.

He was spent from a week of school and (avoiding) social interaction; it was Friday, he had some time to do the few bits of homework he had. He was too tired to clean and too lazy to make anything good to eat that night.

"Frozen pizza and TV it is," he declared to himself, throwing on a dark red thermal shirt and dragging one of his fuzzy blankets from his bed.

When he padded into the kitchen he could really feel the chill from the weather outside. It seeped in through the cracks of the closed window over the sink and settled itself on the cold tile floor. Levi scrunched his toes uncomfortably; he probably should've put some socks on too.

Braving the extra chill from the freezer, he grabbed a pizza and set it on the counter to thaw a bit while the oven preheated. In the meantime, he set a kettle of water on the stove.

Levi went and sat on the living room couch, wrapping his blanket around himself like a cloak. He dug his phone out of his backpack and shot his nanna a quick text that he was home before he flipped on the TV. Bored, with his face in his hand, he flipped through the movie channels until he settled on some horror movie he hadn't seen before and hoped wasn't too campy.

The kettle whistled shrilly, irritating Levi enough to get him off the couch to go turn the burner off. He grabbed a mug from the cupboard and opened one of the pantry doors—the entire inside of the door lined with shelves of different kinds of tea. He browsed his selection for a moment before settling for a tea bag of Earl Grey.

The oven buzzed loudly at Levi that it was heated to the right temperature, so he tossed in the pizza and set the timer in quick movements.

When his tea was steeped to his satisfaction, he grabbed a spoon from his silverware drawer, pulled the tea bag partially out, and pressed it between the side of the mug and the spoon to squeeze it out. He grabbed a lemon slice from the fridge, squeezed it in, and added half a spoon of honey, stirring it all together. He hadn't tried it this way before, but what the hell.

Levi sat back on the couch, crossing his legs under himself, and watched the movie idly for a minute or two. He let the steam from his mug wash over his face before taking a good sip, letting the rich flavor dance over his tongue. It was a little too sweet...maybe less honey next time. Resting his mug in his blanketed lap, he leaned his head back against the couch and closed his eyes.

He ignored the panicked breathing from the girl on the television, running through the forest from who-knows-what; he listened to rain patter against his house and let it lull him.

He kept thinking about Erwin. That stupid little smile… The face he made when he furrowed his brows in concentration just from mixing a simple color… His large hand covering his own when he shook it… His smooth, deep voice talking to him, saying his name…

Levi sighed for the hundredth time and forced the thoughts away again. Who was he kidding? Today was just like any other day.

Just another day of being alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is my first fic to be published! I hope you enjoyed and will stick with me in the future~
> 
> Thanks to shipping_queen for beta'ing, and nervousbat for naming the chapter hehe <3


	2. Existential Tomato Crisis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long, to all those who are following this story! Thank you for sticking with me if you are! Life and school got in the way and all that, so hopefully I can get more out sooner now.
> 
> Thanks for reading!

"Can I sit here?"

Levi didn't look up from his sketchbook. He knew who it was.

" _No_." 

He watched the smug bastard out of the corner of his eye, moving to sit exactly where Levi knew he would: on the bench opposite of him and halfway down the table, rather than right in front of him.

Erwin had been doing this same fucking thing every other day for the past several weeks.

That first day—the Monday after they had met in their art class—he had come up to Levi's empty table at lunch and asked if he could sit with him. Levi had been so bewildered into silence that Erwin had taken it as a yes and moved to sit right in front of him.

Levi had nervously blurted out a too-loud "NO" when Erwin already had one leg over the bench, and he remembered how he had froze, smile faltering just a bit. He had looked so let down that Levi actually felt kind of bad.

"I mean...I don't know..." he'd corrected himself in an attempt to be more polite, cringing at himself for making things so fucking awkward already. He’d just wanted to slap himself when Erwin had stayed where he was, waiting for solid permission to sit down.

"Sit over there if you want," Levi had said dully, waving what he had hoped looked like a careless hand at the opposite end of the table. He’d expected Erwin to just give up after that dismissive comment, but the big idiot had actually sat down where he told him to, looking content as could be. He hadn't tried to make conversation or make any complaints. He just ate his lunch.

Since then, every time he'd ask and Levi would decline, he'd still sit in that same spot at the complete other end of the table. No one to talk to, just eating his lunch in contented silence.

Except not this week.

Erwin was getting bolder, testing Levi’s patience, or tolerance, or something—who the fuck knew. Now he would sit closer each time. Not by much, but he sure as hell wasn't sitting at the far end anymore. He could probably tell that Levi's negations were getting weaker and less sure by the day.

Levi watched Erwin pull a tupperware container out of his backpack. He didn't know what was in it but when Erwin pulled off the lid he could smell it from where he sat. It smelled like potatoes and meat—some kind of stew.

Levi turned back to his own space, his posture lazy. Elbows leaning heavily on the table, he spooned some of his lunch into his mouth with his left hand and scribbled lazily into his sketchbook with his right. His food wasn't too exciting, just an easy rice and vegetable dish he had made that morning before school. It was a little bland actually, but the fact that he had added a shit ton of sautéed onions made up for that.

His bottle of grape juice was also a welcome contrast to his meal—nice and tart. He fucking loved grape juice.

He glanced over to Erwin again and watched him twist open the cap of whatever sports drink he had—something that looked unhealthily blue. Erwin knocked it back for a few hearty gulps and looked over at Levi, catching his eyes on him again.

Levi flicked his gaze away, embarrassed at himself _again_. He had become less shy around Erwin since their first meeting, but every time their eyes met by accident he felt like he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't have.

Erwin smiled and set down his drink. He scooted an inch closer to Levi's side of the table.

Now Levi watched him deliberately, eyes narrowing to slits.

Erwin scooched another inch closer.

...Did he think this was a fucking game?

Levi turned his head more fully toward the blond idiot, resting his temple on his fist, pencil dangling uselessly in his hand. He blinked slowly at Erwin, waiting for his next move. The look he was giving him clearly said, “Are you fucking serious?”

He was almost amused. _Almost._

Erwin nodded his head to the side—the gesture a suggestion of an invitation for Levi to move closer to him. Levi stayed where he was, defiantly raising a thin eyebrow.

Erwin sighed, having been turned down yet again, and looked dejectedly at the ceiling. He grabbed his lunch and continued looking upwards, eyes shining with a mock innocence that made Levi narrow his eyes in suspicion once again.

Then suddenly, Erwin moved down the bench a good few feet in one startlingly fast motion.

"Hey," he greeted, now sitting directly in front of Levi.

Levi sighed and set his pencil down on his sketchbook. "What are you doing?"

"Y’know...sitting...eating...usual lunchtime procedure." He nodded his head matter-of-factly and took a bite of his food.

Levi rolled his eyes with an exaggerated flourish. He took a sip of his juice and continued dryly, "I meant _here_. At _my_ table."

"I don't know. Seems like a perfectly good table to me," Erwin replied playfully, smiling at him.

Levi rubbed his forehead, dropping his spoon back into his meal. "Don't you have...I don't know...your _friends_ to sit with?"

"Huh? Uh, yeah, over there." Erwin turned his body around and pointed at a table on nearly the other side of the cafeteria. Maybe a dozen or so people sat there—loudly talking, playing around. A lot of the guys looked fit; they were probably on the football team with Erwin.

A particularly animated boy with a crop of shaggy brown hair and glasses saw Erwin pointing and grinned. He hunched down slightly, putting his hand close to his face, and wiggled his fingers in a teasing hello in Levi's direction.

Levi flushed and scooted himself so Erwin's larger frame blocked him from view, and a loud cackle rose above the general mingling of conversing students. Erwin turned back to Levi, amused to see him peering back around his body to confirm that it was indeed the glasses boy, snorting when he inhaled from the strain of his laugh. A couple others were laughing with him, along with a gingery-blonde girl sitting close by, giggling but trying to shush him at the same time.

Levi's lip twitched angrily. He didn't want to be made fun of. He already had to keep his temper in check so often at school, half the time because of fucking _Nile_.

Was he actually being loudly made fun of across the fucking cafeteria? What the fuck were they laughing at? They were laughing at him, probably. No, definitely. Is this why Erwin was doing this bullshit? Just some weird drawn-out revenge for that day he ran into him? To make him feel like an embarrassed idiot? If these assholes kept it up any longer he wouldn't be able to fucking—

"Hey." Erwin waved a hand in front of Levi's face to get his attention. He twitched away from it like a startled animal. Only when he snapped out of his thoughts did he realize just how deep and nasty a scowl his face was set in; it was actually starting to make his face ache.

"Don't worry about them. They aren't laughing at you, they're laughing at Hanji." Levi looked sternly at Erwin. He wasn't laughing like his friends were. He looked serious, maybe a little sad, even.

Levi let himself relax a bit of his tension away.

"Who the fuck is Hanji?"

"The one with the glasses. And the stupid laugh," Erwin clarified. "They aren't laughing at you, I promise. Hanji's a tease to everyone."

"Whatever," Levi said bitterly into his lunch and began eating again.

Erwin went back to his lunch too, but after a few bites he put it back down.

"Do you have any other friends to sit with?" he asked in a kind voice. Levi's face contorted into a grimace and he swallowed what was in his mouth before speaking.

"Yes," he said dryly. He waved his arm, dramatically presenting the empty table they sat at, smiling with no small amount of sarcasm. "Look at all these wonderful friends," he continued, voice lilting with intentionally fake saccharine sweetness. He dropped his arm and frowned at Erwin, whose brows had drawn down slightly.

"I didn't mean that as an insult, Levi."

Levi glared into Erwin's eyes, assessing him. He didn’t find any malice or contempt in his gaze—at least none that he could detect anyways. He forced himself to look away, down at his lap, and remained quiet. He probably looked like some stupid child that had just gotten a good scolding. But really, the only one punishing Levi was himself.

He'd been running his mouth off all day today. Not just at lunch, in class too. The only thing that had accomplished was putting himself in a terrible, pissy mood.

Erwin wasn't doing anything wrong; it was his own temper that was making everything awful. It was always his own fucking fault for ruining everything because he couldn't handle his emotions as well as he liked to believe he could. He mentally chided himself over and over, feeling himself getting upset. He didn't like to get upset when he was by himself, let alone in public surrounded by a mass of people. He rubbed the heel of his hand into one of his eyebrows, channeling his stress out through the motion.

Erwin watched Levi carefully—watched all the negative emotions flit across his face, and the antsy physicalizations that they produced.

"Would you like to sit at our table sometime?" Erwin tried.

Levi stopped rubbing at his brow. That question danced around his head, distracting him from his other thoughts. He didn't think too hard about it.

"...No thanks."

Erwin looked only slightly surprised. "No?"

Levi shook his head. He didn't have to explain himself but he felt like he should say at least a little. Despite his own self-deprecating, he could recognize that Erwin was trying to be friendly to him, and that was a lot more effort than people usually spent on him. He just didn't know _why_ he was putting all this effort into him.

"Too loud... Too many people..." he explained shortly.

"Hm. Like, you're claustrophobic?"

"I don't know?" Levi shifted where he sat. "I just...like being alone here. It's the only time during school where I don't have to be around other people. And I don't have to talk to anybody." Levi picked nervously at the plastic edging of the table, watching his fingers. He needed to cut his nails when he got home.

"Ah, I see. I can understand that. Having some time to yourself is important." Erwin waited for Levi to look at him again before he continued. "Would you prefer for me not to sit here anymore?"

Levi thought about it for a moment. Did he? He couldn't say he completely leaned toward a yes or a no to that question. Even though he liked being alone, and he rebuffed Erwin so many times, it was kind of a nice feeling to have someone sitting at his table. Even when Erwin just sat at the other end of the table and ate his lunch in silence...he was still _there_.

Levi wanted a friend. He did. But he was standing in his own way, his own thoughts conflicting and contradicting. He couldn't convince himself to actually let it happen yet. He didn't know why. He guessed it was probably fear of some sort.

Fear of rejection? Fear that it would just be a bullying lie? Fear that Erwin would change his mind after they'd established something? Fear that he'd find out he wasn't straight and something awful would happen?

Just...fear.

And there was nothing Levi hated more in life than feeling afraid.

He shrugged somewhat passively at Erwin. "I don't know," was all Levi said in response, and Erwin nodded at him like that was a perfectly acceptable answer. "Why are you doing this?"

Erwin looked at him in confusion. "Doing what?"

"Sitting here. Being nice. Talking to me," he replied curtly. There was a note of sadness in his voice and he hoped to whatever god that Erwin didn't hear it.

"I don't see any good reason not to do those things. You seem like an interesting guy to me, and I want to get to know you a little better. Is that so bad?"

"I'm not that interesting..."

"I highly doubt that." Erwin smiled warmly. "Even if you are a little shy and grumpy sometimes, there's got to be something about you. Something you enjoy...something you're good at?"

Levi internally cringed at being called "shy and grumpy," but he knew it was the truth. He wouldn't deny it even though he wanted to.

"So, what? You want me to hang out with you and your friends or something?" Levi flicked his gaze uneasily to the raucous table and back to Erwin. "Because we have so much in common?" he added sarcastically.

"No, you don't have to if it makes you uncomfortable. And you never know, Levi. We could have some small things in common." Erwin smiled again, unphased by Levi’s sarcasm. “I know you like art.” Erwin gestured to Levi’s sketchbook and Levi subconsciously moved it closer to himself in an act of shyness. “I like art too. So there you go, one thing in common.”

Levi was barely taking in what Erwin was saying. Everything was whizzing through his mind as he tried to comprehend why someone was trying so hard to get along with him despite how abrasive he was being.

"But, just...why?"

"Why?"

"Why _me?_ As far as I can tell, I don't fit into your ‘social group.’"

"This isn't about social groups or anything like that." Erwin shifted so he was leaning a little closer to Levi, making sure he was actually listening. "I just think you might be someone cool to hang out with and get to know. And sometimes you look like you could use a friend..." Levi frowned.

"Not out of pity, not like that," Erwin almost impatiently corrected himself. Levi’s expression softened again. "This isn't like a... _negotiation_ or something, Levi. I'm not trying to force you into anything. It's just a suggestion. An invitation."

Levi's eyes widened marginally and he gave Erwin the smallest nod of understanding.

"I don't know, Levi, you just interest me. And I think maybe I interest you too."

Levi's eyebrows raised incredulously at that, eyes almost ridiculously wide now.

"What makes you think that?" Levi replied petulantly.

"You do stare at me an awful lot," Erwin laughed.

Levi was instantly mortified. He tried not to flush but he felt his face grow hotter still as he sunk into his sweatshirt—apparently a new habit of his. His face was probably bright red, and that thought made him even more embarrassed.

Erwin thought he was _interested_ in him? What the fuck did he mean by "interested" now? Did he know that Levi thought he was attractive? Shit, Erwin noticed he stared. Why would Erwin think him staring at him all the time was normal?

"Ah, sorry, sorry. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable," Erwin apologized, waving a hand at him. "I wasn’t trying to—"

The irritating school bell sounded suddenly and rattled through Levi's skull, the chaos of student departure rising once again. Was lunch over already?

"Anyway... Maybe we could hang out sometime." Levi locked his eyes onto Erwin's. The invitation made Levi feel both warm with excitement and cold with anxiety, his questioning thoughts still nagging at the back of his head. Erwin put his lunch back in his bag, pulling his legs out from under the table and up over the bench. "See you Monday."

"Monday?" Levi asked. "Are you cutting class?"

"Uhhh, sorta? I need to draw up some new plays with Coach before practice today. Season's starting."

Levi hummed in response, taking his time getting up. Now he felt a little disappointed that Erwin wouldn't be in art today. _Fucking disappointed like some gay loser_ , he berated himself.

Erwin looked to his friends that were coming up the center aisle towards them.

"So yeah, let me know if you want to hang out sometime. If not, that's okay too." Erwin smiled at him again, though it faltered when Hanji came up behind him and punched him hard in the arm.

"Those plays better be good, Smith," he warned playfully in a voice that was a bit higher than Levi had expected. "We gotta kick _ass!_ We're on varsity now!" He slapped Erwin on the back and laughed.

"Yeah, yeah." Erwin's voice made it sound like he was rolling his eyes at Hanji. "I'll go over our strategies thoroughly with Mike and Coach. You know I will."

Levi fidgeted awkwardly, fingertips tapping against his palms as he watched them interact. He couldn't leave because they were all blocking his path to freedom. Hanji looked around Erwin at him and he tensed as the energetic boy brought two fingers to his forehead and flicked them away in a quick salute. "Salutations, Pudding Boy."

Pudding Boy?

_Pudding. Boy._

Levi glared, lips pursed angrily at the grinning idiot. Erwin smiled apologetically at him with a small awkward laugh, trying to be somewhat reassuring.

"Hanji, _c'moooon_ , you don't have time for teasing!" the blonde girl from before chided. "You can’t be late to class again! What if they give you detention? That's not going to be good if you miss practice for that!"

"Yeah, babe, I'm goin', I'm goin'," he replied, smiling at Levi again and putting an arm over his girlfriend's shoulder. He led her to the doors, the others following behind like a flock of sheep.

"See you, Levi." Erwin waved and turned to join his group of friends.

Levi stood where he was for a second, the cogs in his brain moving slower than he would have liked. When they finally clicked he spurred himself into action, grabbing his bag and moving toward the exit like everyone else.

"Er-Erwin!" he called to him.

Erwin turned from the conversation he was having with a blond guy—one who was incredulously even taller than he was.

What was this, a school for giants?

"Yeah?"

Levi tried to sound as confident as he could with other people moving and bumping past him, and with Erwin's taller friend watching him silently and intently. His nerves and nagging fears bubbled angrily in his chest, but he pushed them away, forcing himself to have just a few seconds of courage.

"I...I'll think about it."

The pleased smile from Erwin that he received made those few seconds worth everything. He nodded his head goodbye, still smiling as he walked through the doors. His taller friend glanced back once more and met Levi’s eyes for a moment before turning to follow Erwin.

"I'll think about it," Levi repeated to himself.

 

* * *

 

Fuck, he couldn't stop thinking about it.

He stared into the shiny red tomato in front of him. It stared back, into his soul.

He'd probably been standing there for five minutes...ten minutes...an hour, who knew—just staring at this tomato like it could answer all his questions in life. Questions like what the fuck to do about hanging out with Erwin Smith.

He didn't want to hang out at his friends' lunch table. That was too much; for now, at least. Too much raucousness. Too much volume. Too much close sitting and jostling around.

He wasn't comfortable with the idea of interacting with them at all. They were all good-looking, sports-playing, friend-having, social people; if he payed enough attention to notice, they were probably the kids designated as "popular." As dumb as it sounded, he just felt so far out of their league.

He didn't belong there.

But Erwin by himself was a different story. Levi could at least _talk_ to him...even if all that came out of him was mostly just grumpy remarks.

Levi set his grocery basket between his feet and crossed his arms over his chest, thinking. He glared harder at the tomato, sitting high at the top of the pile of its shiny, plump comrades.

He still didn't understand how Erwin was "interested" in him. But... Erwin tried to get him to see that someone was willing to be his friend. Levi had just gone so long without having a legitimate friend, or even an acquaintance, that he couldn't prevent his anxiety from rearing its ugly head at the thought.

What would they even do to hang out? Where would they go? Would it just be some painfully awkward experience that would make Erwin change his mind?

"Fucking shitty piece of vegetable trash,” he yelled at the tomato. “What the fuck do I do?!"

"Such language!" He whipped around to see an old woman blinking owlishly at him.

Right. He was in public.

He probably sounded like some vagrant who'd wandered in off the street. He didn't actually expect the tomato to talk back to him, but it probably didn't look that way to anyone around him at the moment.

The lady picked up the large tomato that he had been glaring at and examined it with tired eyes. She gestured at him with it. "It's a fruit, dear. Not a vegetable."

"O...kay."

"You can do lots of things with tomatoes. Sauce, soup, salad, garnish, eat it by itself for a snack. Did you have anything in mind?"

Did she think he was yelling at the the tomato because he didn't know how to eat it? Of course she fucking did. She didn't know about the tall, blond football player plaguing his thoughts.

He shook his head.

"Hmm. Do you like avocados, young man?"

"Yeah."

"They're not in season right now but they're still very good." Levi nodded, politely trying to get her to move on with it. "Well, cut up nice big chunks of avocado and tomato and sprinkle a little feta on there and you've got yourself a salad. Good for snacks too."

She smiled kindly at Levi; the creases in the corners of her eyes showed that she'd smiled a lot in her many years. Levi wondered if he'd even have crow's feet at ninety. Probably not, at this rate. He was just fine with that notion.

"Oh, and a drizzle of olive oil too. Mustn't forget that," she finished, mumbling a few afterthoughts to herself.

"Thanks. I'll try it sometime." Levi tried to be polite, but he really didn't want to be there anymore. He was starting to get that itching feeling, originating from his chest and radiating out through his limbs—the feeling that said "You've spent too much time interacting, time to go home."

"Oh good!" she practically sang. She held out her hand to him, beckoning at his arm. What, did she want him to pay her for her advice or something? Levi lifted his hand, not sure if that's what she wanted or not.

She took his hand and flipped it over so his palm faced upwards. Her hand felt cold and fragile against his, like if he made a sudden movement it might shatter.

She placed his lame excuse for a spiritual guide into his hand.

"And be nice to the tomato, dear." She curled his fingers over it and patted his hand. "It didn't do anything to you." She smiled at him once more and tottered away with her cart to another aisle.

Levi stood there, a little dumbfounded, before picking up his half-full basket to move along with quickly finishing his grocery quest.

That was...interesting...

He went through everything on his list—hopefully an amount of food that would last him the week so he wouldn't have to go into town again anytime soon.

He made sure to grab some avocados and feta before he left.

 

* * *

 

"Home at last," Levi sighed heavily, struggling to rearrange the thin plastic bags hanging off his arms so he could open his front door. It was a forty minute walk from the store back home (thankfully with no rain to drown him), and the handles of the bags were starting to dig into his arms and cut off circulation.

A gentle rustling and a soft thud caught the attention of his ears. He looked at the porch rail and met a pair of green eyes staring at him, unwavering.

"You, again." Levi narrowed his eyes, bumping the door open with his ass. "It's not even raining, why are you here?"

No response.

"Go home."

Levi hustled through the doorway and dumped his groceries on the counter so he could go back and close the door, shaking the feeling back into his arms.

He turned around and stopped short.

" _Excuse you_. Get out of my house!" he yelled at the cat sitting in the middle of the front hallway, tip of its tail tapping the wood floor idly.

"Don't make me literally kick you out of my house, Cat." He moved toward it but it scampered past him into the kitchen.

"Fucking..." He turned to see the cat jumping up onto the center island where his bags were. "OFF! Off the counter!" Levi shouted, immediately stomping over.

He was absolutely livid. _A filthy animal in the kitchen?_ He'd just cleaned yesterday! Now he'd have to disinfect the whole counter again.

The cat sniffed at one of his grocery bags and Levi snatched the bag away. It moved away, rounding its back at Levi, ears folded back and emitting a sharp hiss.

"Hey! I don't have to feed you, brat. You aren't my fucking cat."

Levi angrily sifted through the contents of his bag and found a packet of tuna. "Is this what you want?" The cat followed his movements closely, silently. He ripped off the top and grabbed a small plate from his cupboard.

"Outside," he said sternly, showing the cat the tuna he had dumped onto the plate and walking back towards the door. The cat watched him for a moment before hopping down from the counter, paws hitting the tile with a soft noise.

Levi walked a little faster, out the door, and the cat picked up the pace in response, trotting along back out to the porch.

Levi set the dish on the rail of the porch and watched the lithe cat land on the white surface with an agile leap. It set to eating the tuna almost immediately, tail swishing happily behind its body.

It really was a beautiful cat—a breed Levi had never seen anywhere else. Its coat was a tawny-orange with black stripes. The stripes were blended out more in the center of its body, but the markings on the limbs and tail looked unmistakably like a tiger’s.

He didn't know if the cat was male or female. It had tags dangling from the forest green collar around its neck, but Levi had never gotten close enough to read them. The two tags tinkled happily against one another with the motions of the cat eating.

Levi reached a hand out slowly, intent on petting the cat, but the sudden rumbling growl he received made him yank his hand back and scowl.

"Yeah, fuck you too." He went inside and slammed the door behind him.

He made quick work of putting away his groceries, sure that everything was in its rightful place.

Levi looked over the counter and instantly decided it needed a wipe-down because of that stupid cat. Even if it was a pretty clean cat, it had still sat its ass on his countertop. The thought made him sneer and scrub harder at the white tile.

He leaned against the island when he had finished cleaning to his satisfaction.

His mind wandered again to Erwin. He didn’t want to hang out with Erwin’s jock friends, but...that meant he had to hang out with Erwin _alone_. Levi couldn’t recall the last time he had spent time alone with anyone. He couldn’t recall a time when he had thought about somebody so much, either.

He didn’t know what it was about Erwin. There was something that drew him in. His looks, sure, but that had never affected him with anyone else before.

His personality, maybe? That sounded so dumb in his head, but Erwin was kind and caring—from what Levi could tell, at least. The fact that he kept trying to talk to him and be his fucking friend for some reason was evidence of that.

But Levi didn’t quite know if he could handle being alone with him. And depending on where they ended up hanging out, it’s not like he could definitely have an easy escape if things went sour. He didn't want to make things even more unpleasant if he panicked for some reason.

“Ugh, _God._ Why am I such an awkward fuck?” Levi rubbed his palm into his eye socket, annoyed with himself.

He shouldn’t worry about it. At least not until they actually hung out. _If_ they hung out. But he wouldn’t know that now; he didn’t have his number or anything.

He’d just have to wait until Monday at the least.

And talk to him.

Face-to-face.

Levi groaned to himself, the sound unnaturally loud as it bounced off the lacquered cabinets and back to his ears.

He didn’t want to have to ask him for his number. He didn’t want to have to ask to hang out. He didn’t want to be awkward, or embarrassed.

But he also didn’t want to be so alone anymore.

Levi didn't know whether to groan at himself again for being pathetic or to maybe let himself smile a little. He wanted a friend. He wanted _Erwin_ as a friend. And he _did_ want to do something with him.

He really did.


	3. The House with the Crooked Blue Smile

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oopsies, took forever to post again... ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> This chapter ended up being way too long, but what I cut off from it will now be Chapter 4. Might end up writing longer chapters, but I'm not quite sure.
> 
> Thanks for reading c:

Who the fuck was he trying to kid?

What ever made him think that he wouldn’t be a baby long enough to ask Erwin to hang out? It had been _two weeks_ since Erwin had confronted him about it.

 _Two weeks_ of Levi almost opening his mouth to ask and then shutting it again before anything came out.

 _Two weeks_ of Erwin not bringing it up again.

 _Two weeks_ of Levi almost wishing Erwin would bring it up again so he wouldn’t have to.

 _Two weeks_. Of the most stupid torture Levi had ever lived through.

...Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration. But to be honest, if Levi couldn’t even _ask_ Erwin to hang out, how the hell was he going to survive _actually_ hanging out with him?

“ _Suck it uuuuuppp_ ,” he angrily groaned at himself under his breath as he copied math problems from the whiteboard into his notebook. His pencil scratched against the paper too loudly for his liking as he wrote, and he had the sudden bizarre feeling that the sound was drawing attention to him.

He looked up from his paper and glanced around. Nobody was looking at him. As per usual.

Moving his eyes back down to his paper and pushing away his dumb, rambling thoughts, he started on the first problem.

Pre-Calculus was such bullshit. It was pretty much Trig again, only _maybe_ a little bit harder. That’s what it was so far, at least, even though they’d gotten past the review stage of the class before the first week of school was even over.

It was also bullshit because he was a junior in a class of mostly seniors. And a certain scruffy bastard of a senior sat behind him nearly every day and made it his personal mission to annoy the everloving fuck out of him.

Levi nearly growled like a feral animal when he felt the hard press of a boot against the small of his back.

A noticeably wet, most definitely _dirty_ boot.

Levi gripped his mechanical pencil so hard he could feel the plastic bend and creak in protest, the fragile lead tip snapping and skittering off across his desk and to the floor.

He swore to God, if that boot made it all the way through the empty space in the frame of his chair and got stuck, he was going to “accidentally” break the foot inside of it.

The foot pressed into his back rhythmically like it was trying to get his attention—an aggravating, slightly painful gesture.

Levi slowly turned around. The shoe slid down the back of his sweatshirt and pulled the neck of his hoodie uncomfortably tighter around his neck on its way down to thump loudly back to the floor.

A smirk formed behind Nile’s scraggly, shitty-excuse for facial hair.

“Did you miss me?”

Levi’s lip twitched in disgust as he tugged his hoodie forward again, relieving the claustrophobic pressure of it from his throat. “Ha ha,” he laughed without humor. “Right. How could I not miss a repulsive pest like you?”

Nile’s smirk fell into a snarl at the insult and he opened his mouth to yell an insult back at him, no doubt, but the teacher interrupted by loudly telling the class to look at their own papers and get back to work.

“I’ve been so _lonely_ without you,” Levi fake-whined quietly at him, giving him an absolutely nauseated look over his shoulder.

“Yeah, I bet you were. With all of your friends not existing,” Nile hissed back into his ear.

Okay. That one hurt a bit.

Levi turned just enough to look at him. “At least I’m not friends with useless idiots who control me like I’m some brain-dead puppet. Y’know. Like you.”

Nile looked furious, but he didn’t dare yell in class. Instead, all Levi got was Nile’s filthy middle finger shoved in his face.

A scoff huffed out of Levi as he turned back around and Nile kicked his desk hard, knocking it into the desk in front of him. The noise had the teacher glancing up from her desk, but when she saw and heard no more commotion from her students, she went back to grading the tests laid out over her desk.

Once the teacher looked away again, the girl in the bumped desk in front of Levi turned around and looked at him with offended eyes, glaring hard and trying to intimidate him. Levi didn’t even spare her a glance, leaning to the side and pointing behind himself with his thumb so she could redirect her glare at Nile.

She whipped her head back around, long hair hitting Levi in the face. He closed his eyes and took a deep, slow breath.

Nile had been gone for a week, and now he was back. That week without him had practically been a _vacation_ for Levi.

Consider that vacation over.

He assumed Nile had been suspended for bringing alcohol to school, considering he had been practically yelling about having it in his locker to his idiot friends in the hallway. No tact whatsoever.

At least when Levi had been suspended in the past it was from the occasional fight or having a bad temper that he couldn’t control; they were mostly accidents that just _happened._ And he was almost never the one to throw the first punch. He wasn’t fucking stupid like Nile was.

Nile was just so careless and rude and unnecessary—always.

Levi pulled the back of his hoodie around to look at it as best he could, assessing the damage done by Nile’s dirty boot and brushing as much of the filth off as he could manage without actually taking his clothes off. He was definitely going to wash it when he got home, regardless.

Everyone’s attention was called back to the front of the room when the math teacher announced the homework assignment and wrote it on the board, pen squeaking sharply against the surface with each stroke. She dismissed her students a few minutes early for lunch as a “present” for the holiday.

Oh, right. It was Halloween.

There weren’t many people dressed up at school to make the occasion all that obvious, but Levi didn’t pay enough attention to notice anyways. He had pretty much forgotten all about the holiday and the three-day weekend that came with it; it wasn’t like he had plans to celebrate or anything.

Levi rubbed a hand over his face, massaging his eyes with his fingers. He had such a headache. Hopefully the cafeteria wouldn’t be too loud during lunch.

Come to think of it, Erwin was probably going to sit with his friends that day since he had sat with him the day before. It was cold out again, but since the sun was shining through the thick clouds—no rain as of yet—Levi would go sit outside, as far away from people as he could manage.

He waited for the rustling and jostling of students to die down as they left before he dropped his hands back down to his desk. To his surprise, they hit the hard surface of the desktop—smooth and empty. The dark spots clouding his vision faded with a few blinks, revealing that his desk was, in fact, empty.

Where the hell was all his stuff?

Some kid took an unusually long stride past him and Levi looked down at the floor on the other side of his desk.

 _Oh, look_. _There was his stuff._ _How did it get there on the floor?_ he wondered _. Gee._

He looked toward the door and Nile half-waved to him, flipping him off again as he walked out.

How the fuck, indeed.

Really, what had he done to deserve this pest? For once, Levi hadn’t given this asshole something to be an asshole to him about. Sure he’d back-talk him, but the jackass deserved it for coming at him for no reason. He was glad Nile was just a nuisance, though; he was more of a physical annoyance and a vaguely verbal bully than someone that caused real bodily harm. He was just an idiot who wanted to push someone around and, luckily for both of them, he hadn’t said or done anything to really make Levi snap.

Not yet, at least.

Levi sighed his familiar sigh and dragged himself from his seat. He grabbed his bag and sat on top of his desk, swinging his legs over the metal bar and hopping down on the other side.

He gathered the stray papers that had fluttered from his binder and stuffed them back in to be reorganized later. Shaking his notebooks free of whatever pencil eraser debris was on the floor, he picked up all his writing utensils with his other hand and stuffed them into the small front pocket of his backpack.

He stood, filing his binder and notebooks back into his bag with his other things in height order: binder, then the folders, then the notebooks, and lastly his small planner.

At least all he suffered was minor property damage, Levi thought to himself.

He traveled down the hallway, taking a few turns here and there to get to the cafeteria. As he expected, there weren’t many people there yet; the lunch bell still had a minute or so until it rang for the majority of students.

The girl with the strawberry blonde hair that Hanji always had his arm around was sitting at her usual table, though this time she was the only one there; the table would no doubt be packed mere seconds after the bell rang. She was wearing a letterman jacket that was too big for her and a black headband with two cat ears sticking up from it.

Levi walked in her direction, intent only on getting past her table to the doors that led outside.

She looked up from her phone and saw him. Levi fought the urge to just look away and keep walking, but he met her gaze for a moment. As he passed, she smiled quietly at him and gave him a little wave.

Levi blinked at her and raised his hand at his waist before quickly stuffing it back into his spacious hoodie pocket. That wasn't really a wave, but whatever. He sped up a bit, passing her table with haste and pushing through the doors with his shoulder.

It was an odd feeling for him to get any sort of pleasantry directed at him. He was mostly used to it when Erwin did it now, but definitely not from anyone else. The girl who had waved at him (“Petra,” as he had learned from Erwin) would say hello or wave to him sometimes in the hallway.

And Erwin’s taller friend had once sat with him in the library and shared a few sentences with him. His name was Mike, and even though they were in the library and had to be quiet anyways, Levi could tell he was a quiet person in general. He was also a little strange, Levi figured; if he wasn’t mistaken, he was pretty sure Mike had sniffed at him before he had sat with him to study.

What the actual fuck was that about?

Levi looked at the sky as he sauntered around outside. Great. It looked like it was going to rain again, but was that really a surprise? It was always raining here. It wouldn’t rain during lunch, at least, but it probably would around the time when he would walk home.

Damn, he really needed to get a fucking umbrella.

He walked right past all the tables that sat in the little courtyard outside the cafeteria, and turned the corner. He didn’t actually know if he was allowed to be all the way over there, but he figured that it didn’t really matter until someone came over and told him as such.

It was a tiny little area not meant for anything—just a corner formed from the building and a good place to hide away for a while.

Large bricks formed a wall on one side; a large gap like a window in the middle showed the street on the other side. Levi sat his bag on the ledge of the gap and grasped the cold stone beneath his fingers. The ledge was chest height for Levi but that didn’t matter; he knew he could get up there.

He jumped, pressing up onto his arms and raising himself enough to swing his foot up onto the flat surface. He twisted and climbed until he sat on the slim ledge, his back pressed against the main wall of the building, his body a perfect “L.” He bent his legs to reach for his bag, producing a sandwich from it and settling back against the wall with his legs outstretched, ankles crossed.

He leaned his head back against the hard surface and sighed as he slowly chewed his sandwich, taking his time. He let himself taste every flavor of his sandwich: leftover chicken salad and a few leaves of lettuce on toasted whole grain bread.

The world was calm as he closed his eyes and breathed in the earthy smell around him, one of his feet jiggling idly to dispel his extra nervous energy.

It was nice out there.

Peaceful.

There weren’t any students’ voices to muddy the silence around him. There was only the road on the other side of the wall where he could watch the cars go by. It wasn’t a busy street, but there were enough cars passing that it filled the emptiness with a comfortable white noise—tires rolling over the wet asphalt and kicking up moisture, the crunch of gravel.

Levi wished lunch was longer than thirty minutes. He could spend hours over here, if it weren’t for the fact that he hadn’t even finished his sandwich yet and his ass was already frozen from the cold, stone surface he sat on.

His phone buzzed twice in his pants, so he dug it out of his front pocket. Flipping it open, he was greeted with a text message.

**From: Nanna**

**Thursday, 12:52 PM**

**_Hppy halloween, hun. B safe & dont get in2 any trouble plz :-)_ **

Levi laughed quietly to himself and smiled a little. How many times did he have to tell his Nan she could text in complete sentences instead of trying to use chat speak.

**To: Nanna**

**Thursday, 12:54 PM**

**_I won’t get into any trouble. I promise. Probably will stay home._ **

 

**From: Nanna**

**Thursday, 12:57 PM**

**_Lets call ltr this wknd ok? Want 2 talk 2 u abt holidays & school & such._ **

 

**To: Nanna**

**Thursday, 12:58 PM**

**_Okay. Bell’s gonna ring. Talk to you later._ **

As he expected, the bell rang within a minute of sending the message. The shrill sound was soft now; he was too far away from it for it to really bother him.

**From: Nanna**

**Thursday, 1:00 PM**

**_Luv u Levi_ **

 

**To: Nanna**

**Thursday, 1:00 PM**

**_ <3_ **

With that, Levi hopped down from the ledge, shaking his feet of the sting from his short fall. He felt a little lighter. His nanna could overly-dote on him sometimes, but she still made him feel wanted.

Levi needed someone to want him. Even if it was just one older lady, that was fine. Just _someone._

He suddenly felt kind of pathetic and needy for thinking that. It made him a little angry, his mood already dampened again. God, couldn’t he be happy for even five fucking seconds?

All but wrenching the door off its hinges, he went back inside. He forcefully shoved the plastic baggie he brought his sandwich in into a trash can as he left the cafeteria and headed for the stairs. The moment the rubber sole of his shoe met the first step, the bell rang again, signaling that he was late for class.

Erwin wasn’t in class either, Levi saw as he ascended the staircase; he was at the other end of the hall. Two pretty girls were with him and their flirting wasn’t the least bit subtle. They kept touching his arms and giggling and twirling their hair and biting their lip gloss-slicked lips. And Erwin just went along with them, smiling and laughing, leaning into them. Levi couldn’t hear what Erwin was saying, but whatever it was, it kept making the girls giggle and blush.

He didn’t know if it was because he had already put himself in a bad mood or not, but he felt an odd pang of tension in his chest at seeing the three at the end of the hall.

He didn’t like that feeling.

He turned from them before any of them caught sight of him, and luckily when he stepped into the classroom, the teacher didn’t bat an eyelash. He looked like he was going to be extra lenient for the holidays like some of his other teachers, because they knew most of the students wouldn’t be paying much attention anyways. He wasn’t giving any lecture, actually, so Levi figured he had probably just given short instructions in the time it took for him to get to class.

Against his will, Levi asked a classmate what they were doing in class that day. Apparently they were having a free day, but if they found a partner and shared the makeup, they could paint each other’s faces. His classmate told him that supposedly their teacher’s wife worked for a theatrical makeup company or some shit, so he had acquired enough palettes for pairs of his students to play with.

Levi grabbed the last palette and a couple supplies from the teacher’s huge desk and sat down at his table, slumping lazily in his chair. When he looked up again, Erwin was trying to leave the two girls at the door, practically having to peel them off his jacket to shoo them away.

Levi looked away and scoffed. He didn’t know if he was scoffing at Erwin for flirting or scoffing at himself because he was jealous.

 _Jealous_... Jealous of _what?_ That was such a stupid and unfamiliar concept to Levi; he didn’t even know how to process the feeling.

He put his hand over his eyes and took a deep, agonizing breath. “ _God_. Get it together, you gay idiot.”

“Are you okay?”

Levi jumped at Erwin’s suddenly close voice. Oh shit, had he heard him?

Erwin looked at him as he took his seat, face showing a hint of concern instead of any sort of amusement. Okay. No. He hadn’t heard him.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Levi sunk down a little further in his seat, his ass nearly hanging off the edge. He opened the makeup palette, jabbing a small brush into the green square of paint and scraping the excess off on the side of the container.

Swiping the brush over the back of his hand, he assessed the consistency of the paint before nodding his head and continuing to make sharp precise swirls into his skin. He picked up another brush and loaded it with the orange, painting a large pumpkin shape on his hand. Picking up red with the same brush, he shaded it with easy passes.

“Is that what we are supposed to be doing today?” Erwin questioned him passively.

Levi looked at his hand critically and frowned. He didn’t like what he had painted. So boring.

“Nah.” He got up, moving a little ways down the counter behind him to the sink, where he started scrubbing at his hand with the pumice soap that sat on the lip of the metal basin. “It’s a free day. Or we can play with this crap,” he said, holding up his hand that was now smeared with a mess of muddled paint and soap.

Levi watched Erwin as he looked around the room. Around half of their classmates were painting each other, the other half either idly doodling or sleeping with their heads in their arms. Because he had been staring, Levi was nearly startled to death when Erwin whipped back around to look at him with a face gleaming with sudden excitement.

“Will you paint something on me?”

Levi blinked at him. “What?”

“C’mon, you always doodle those cool designs with the watercolors in your sketchbook. Paint something on me!” God, he looked like a little kid begging his parents for a video game with all that excited anticipation shining in his eyes.

Levi dried his hands off with a paper towel and sat back down.

“You really want this shit on your face?”

“It’s only one day. Couldn’t hurt too bad, right?” Erwin smiled at him.

Levi swallowed. That smile always got him. It was that _particular_ smile; it always was. Erwin didn’t really smile too often with his teeth, but his closed lips stretched his mouth into a warm, friendly expression. His smile always looked like there was a small chuckle hiding behind it, the skin around his nearly-closed eyes crinkling happily.

It always got Levi. Especially when it was directed at him.

“What...do you want me to paint?” he asked quietly, cursing himself for sounding so meek.

“I don’t know,” he laughed. “Something cool?”

Levi shook his head and huffed a laugh of his own through his nose. “Can’t guarantee anything,” he warned, using the tiny spray bottle of rubbing alcohol he had grabbed earlier to clean off his brushes and the palette, as the teacher had advised.

He pondered for a moment, biting lightly on the end of the makeup brush and looking at the palette; he didn't want to do anything too complicated, but knowing himself, it would probably turn out more complicated than he intended it to anyways.

He wanted to work with more Halloween-type colors—orange, black, green, and purple. Maybe he could make a bright-colored, stylized face… _Yeah_ , he thought. _That'd be pretty cool._

Levi nodded to himself and dabbed a makeup sponge into the orange. When it was saturated with the pigment he turned automatically to Erwin and froze.

Right...he had to paint on Erwin’s face. He'd almost forgotten that in the brief moments when he was deciding what to do.

Erwin was waiting for him, his body leaned in toward Levi. His eyes were closed gently, thick blond eyelashes so soft against his fair skin.

"Uh..."

"Something wrong?" Erwin opened his eyes and Levi was pierced straight through by the clear blue of his irises, his face so close to his own.

Levi cleared his throat awkwardly.

"Could you move your hair off your face?"

Erwin nodded and flattened his hair over the top of his head, keeping it in place with his hand. He had a big forehead to match his big eyebrows, Levi noted.

"Do you care if this gets in your eyebrows?" he asked as he swept a couple of stray hairs out of the way.

Erwin laughed. "Only if it doesn't make them fall off."

"Let's hope not. You'd look fucking weird without those monsters."

Levi tensed—suddenly anxious about his rude comment—but his flash of panic faded in an instant when Erwin only laughed harder and agreed with him. The breath that slid past Levi’s lips was heavy with relief.

He brought the sponge closer to Erwin’s face. "Close your eyes."

Erwin obeyed his short command, leaning forward again with his body supported by one of his arms braced against the seat of his chair between his legs.

This was much closer than Levi usually allowed others to get to his personal bubble. They wouldn't be able to get _close_ to his bubble, let alone _inside_ it. But then again, Erwin didn't make him nearly as uncomfortable as other people did.

He dabbed and patted the orange under Erwin's eye and up to his temple on the right side of his face, making a sharply curved stripe that emphasized Erwin's already-sharp cheekbone. Levi readied two brushes with other colors next: a thick, flat brush of green and a slimmer, tapered brush of purple.

"How was your day today?"

Levi paused at the cordial question directed at him, green paint a hair's breadth from Erwin's skin.

"It was okay, I guess."

Erwin hummed at Levi as he stroked the brush over his jaw in a long curving line.

"You doin’ anything for Halloween?"

"No... Not really." Levi followed along the green tendril with the purple. The line wavered a bit, his hand unsteady in its unsupported position. He hesitated for a moment, then placed his pointer finger from his other hand under Erwin's chin and propped his painting hand on it. "I'll probably just stay home and watch movies or something."

Erwin opened his eyes again and watched Levi as he painted.

"...You?" Levi continued, eyes flashing up to Erwin's for a second before focusing back on his work. He alternated the green and purple tendrils over his jaw, following the path of his muscles as they would have appeared if they showed through his skin. He left a slash of empty space over his cheek where he knew he would fill in later with something different.

"There's this big Halloween party going down at Schultz's house tonight." Levi didn't know who Schultz was, but he nodded. He tilted his head down deliberately and Erwin mirrored him. Continuing the muscle-tendrils over his forehead—avoiding his eyebrow for the moment—he filled in the rest of the empty space on the right side of Erwin’s face.

“I don’t think I’ll go, though,” Erwin said as Levi mixed complementary colors, making dulled-down hues to shade over places of the bright colors.

“No?”

“Nah, I don’t really feel up for another crazy party right now. The team throws too many.”

Levi had never been to a “crazy party.” He couldn’t even remember the last time he had been to a party of any kind, really. Unless he counted hanging out with his Nan for birthdays or something.

No. That definitely didn’t count.

He shaded and defined some of the tendrils to really make them stand out, turning Erwin’s head to different angles to really assess what he was doing. It had started out as such a simple design, but the small details really made everything work together cohesively and brought more depth to his spontaneous bought of face-painting.

Next Levi prepared a medium tapered brush with black, outlining the space he left open on Erwin’s cheek and forming the curled corner of what was going to be half of a crooked smile. He used his hand under Erwin’s chin to make him part his lips slightly, and painted over the soft skin there. His lips looked plush and full, unlike Levi’s thinner ones; he tried not to focus on them too much as he continued the outline over Erwin’s top lip.

“My dad put me on candy duty at the house since he’s gone for the weekend, anyways,” Erwin chuckled. “So I’m kind of obligated to stay home.”

“Maybe your dad just wants you to stay home so he can party with your friends.”

Erwin threw his head back with a laugh, startling Levi with his sudden movement. Fucker better hadn't’ve ruined his face paint by doing that.

“You know, I bet he would do that just to be a lame dad,” Erwin laughed jovially. He looked so goddamn happy that it sent a flood of warmth through Levi’s core at the knowledge that he could make someone look like that.

“Stop moving, you smudged it already,” Levi chided.

“Sorry, sorry.” Erwin’s laughter died down and he stilled once more. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Levi lined the bottom of the smile, brush caressing under Erwin’s full bottom lip.

“How’s it coming?” Erwin asked, trying not to move his mouth too much.

“ _Shh_ ,” Levi hushed sharply. “Don’t speak.”

The small glare sent at him in response had Levi smirking a little to himself, but Erwin stayed quiet like he was commanded to.

Levi fixed up Erwin’s top lip that he had smudged and filled the false smile with lines that formed crooked teeth. He filled those in white, adding smudges of color to a few to make them stand out.

He moved to his thick eyebrow next, covering it completely with black and making it sharp and intimidating. He looked back over Erwin’s face with quick flashes of his eyes and decided to do the final touches. He added striated lines that followed the curves of Erwin’s false features: sketchy accents, like how Levi sometimes drew in his sketchbook.

Thin lines on the bright orange patch under his eye made it look like there were heavy bags under it. A thicker contour around the shell of his nostril that tapered down his smile line, a few furrows in the frown lines between his eyebrows and a couple false wrinkle lines where the fake smile ended made his face look instantly more diabolical.

Okay, it looked pretty cool, Levi had to admit.

He raised his finger in a “wait a sec” gesture and left their table to get the setting powder from the teacher’s desk. He shook some into a tissue that he had meticulously folded into a square with perfect corners. He flicked a couple more tissues out of the box before he went back.

Erwin closed his eyes as Levi dabbed the powder over his painted face and Levi scowled; the powder made everything look dull and pale. With his extra tissues, he dusted them over his face and breathed with relief when the extra powder fell away and the color showed brilliantly once again.

Levi pulled away and sat back.

Erwin opened one eye and then the other, looking to Levi expectantly. His one eye looked so much more blue when it was surrounded by that bright, bright orange.

“Done?”

“Done.”

Erwin smiled a big, toothy grin, letting his hair fall back down over his forehead. One half of his face smiled bright and happy, the other contorted in a grimace.

Yeah. Yeah, that looked really cool.

Erwin pulled his phone out: a huge touchscreen that could barely even be called a phone. Levi felt subconscious about his shitty little flip phone even though it was hidden away in his pocket.

He looked at himself in the reflection of the large screen. “Yes.” He turned his phone on, flipping to the camera to really look at his face. He made a face at Levi. “ _Yes_.” He turned his head at different angles, making different faces and clicking the long button on the side of his phone to capture the images. “This is really cool, Levi,” he mumbled in awe.

Levi smiled a little, hiding the expression just under the edge of his sweatshirt while Erwin kept looking at his face in his phone.

“Can I paint your face too?” he asked, a little gleam in his eye.

“No.” Levi mumbled the word into his sweatshirt and met his eyes with a testy glare.

“Aww, come on. Just a little something?”

“No. That shit’s gonna mess up my skin even more than it already is.” He didn’t have any bad breakouts to be self-conscious about at the moment, but he still sported a few small patches of obvious scarring from where he had picked at his skin along his chin that made him feel gross.

“Your skin isn’t that bad.” Levi sunk down in his sweatshirt to the bridge of his nose, eyes squinting over the edge. “I’ve seen a lot worse, you’re fine,” Erwin commented lightly. “If it does mess up your skin, take comfort in the fact that you won’t have too much to worry about. Unlike me, who will have half my face destroyed,” he laughed.

Levi narrowed his eyes his eyes even further. “Fine,” he grumbled in assent.

“Just a _little_ bit. I promise.” Erwin cleaned the used squares on the palette and the two smallest brushes with the alcohol, like Levi had earlier.  When he had one brush covered in black paint, he scooted his chair a little closer to Levi—so close that their knees bumped together when Erwin shifted.

With a gentle touch, Erwin pulled Levi’s sweatshirt down his nose and over his chin to reveal his grumpily pursed lips. He just smiled and put a hand on the side of Levi’s face, bringing the brush close to him.

Levi swallowed. His heartbeat fluttered under his ribs as he tried to ignore how warm and large Erwin’s hand felt on the side of his face, and how Erwin’s knee pressing against his was spreading his legs a little further apart from their position straddling his chair. He closed his eyes to fight off his embarrassment, but with his eyes closed he just focused more on the touches. A sudden bout of stubbornness kept his eyes closed when the bristles of the brush tickled over his cheek in slow strokes.

“Hey, so… Do you want to maybe come watch movies at my house?” Erwin’s voice was softer than his touch and it made Levi’s pulse beat hard against his neck. The hand pulled away and his fingers moved to Levi’s other cheek, tickling the skin there with the same slow strokes of the brush.

“...When?”

“Tonight?”

Levi pushed down his rising anxieties, scrunched his still-closed eyes, and let himself breathe for a moment. “Yeah. Sure.”

Erwin breathed out a little sound of his own—something that sounded like it could have been a sigh of relief.

Levi’s lip twitched when he felt the brush stroke over his cupid’s bow, followed by delicate little pokes to his upper lip. Levi opened his eyes right when Erwin poked him in the nose with the brush and he twitched from it, scrunching his nose and scowling in a way that made Erwin hold back his quiet chuckle. Ignoring Levi’s grumpiness, he finished the last few ticklish strokes over the perky tip of his nose.

“There.” Erwin sat back heavily in his chair. “Truly a work of art.” A flash of an idea came over his face. “No, wait,” he interjected, moving to dig through his backpack for something.

“What did you paint on me?”

“A cute cat face,” he said, clearly proud of himself as he plopped a thin band over Levi’s head and handed him his phone to take a look.

Levi bristled. Cute? No, Levi wasn’t cute. He was the complete opposite of cute.

Snatching the phone out of Erwin’s hand, he looked at his face in the camera and frowned. When he scrunched his nose, the painted pink cat nose perked up with it and the whiskers warped with the fine expressive lines of his face.

The band on his head bore two soft-looking cat ears—a pair that looked like the ones that Petra had been wearing during lunch.

Erwin definitely wasn’t calling him cute, though. Just the face he had painted on him. The girls Erwin was with before class…he would think they were cute. But not him—definitely not—Levi tried to convince himself.

Levi blushed hard, his face scowling as he squeezed Erwin’s giant phone in his hand. The screen flashed, and Levi flinched; the image of him froze for a quick moment and was sucked away to the small square in the bottom corner of the screen.

“Oh, goddammit.”

“What? What happened?”

“Pretty sure I just took a fucking picture,” Levi growled, shoving the phone back into Erwin’s hands. “Delete it.”

Erwin was laughing at him again. “Don’t be such a grumpy kitty,” he teased, earning himself Levi’s snarled upper lip and a mock hiss that only made Erwin chortle harder like an old man.

It really amazed Levi how comfortable he had gotten with Erwin. He had only known him for, what? Five weeks? That short amount of time felt like ages already, and he’d already let him get closer than anyone else ever had been. Levi still couldn’t understand it. It was like someone had cast some gay spell over him that enabled him to actually make a friend for once.

They talked a decent amount in class and during lunch; conversation between them had become easier for Levi, too. He wasn’t quite as nervous as he had been before. He could say “Hi” without feeling lost or out of place. He could swear in front of Erwin and not worry about being too crass. They could joke and tease, though sometimes that still made him nervous if he thought he had stepped over a line—but with Erwin it seemed like there was hardly even a line to be crossed. They could laugh—or rather, Erwin would laugh and Levi would get embarrassed and try not to.

But, he could actually...enjoy being around another human being for once.

They never really talked about or shared anything that was too personal, but that was okay with Levi. Sharing things like that probably would’ve made things too intimate too fast. He wasn’t used to sharing anything like that with another person, and he didn’t exactly have a whole lot of personal info about himself that was good to share anyways.

What was he supposed to say, “I live by myself, I’m a fuck-up, I don’t have any friends and my parents don’t want me”?

Yeah. Real charming.

...But he still allowed Erwin to get in his personal bubble to an extent.

He let him play around. He let him talk to him. He let him sit near him. He let him share part of his lunch with him once. He let him paint stupid ( _definitely_ not cute) cat whiskers on his face.

He let Erwin do so much more than anyone else and that scared him a little. The fact that he let a complete stranger get so close, so quickly was an overwhelming feeling.

The nagging voice in the back of his mind still piped up once in awhile, telling him that he was just going to fuck everything up again like he always did.

“You’re staring at me again.”

Levi blinked, coming back to reality and shooing away the cloud of thoughts that hazed over his mind.

“No, I’m not,” he defended. “I’m...thinking.”

“About what?”

He fidgeted a bit in his seat, trying to avoid Erwin’s eyes. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it,” he replied, starting to clean up their side of the table. He focused his attention on the black spot of makeup that was stubbornly sticking to the surface. Erwin helped him quietly, not pressing him any further.

“So…how about seven?” Erwin said after a while.

“Seven what?”

“Seven o’clock. To come over?”

Oh, shit. Right.

A thrill of excitement and anxiety radiated from Levi’s chest and stuck in his throat. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “Yeah, that’s fine,” he said a little louder.

“Do you know where the grove park is?”

“No, not really.” Erwin didn’t really know the extent of how much Levi didn’t know jack shit about this town apart from their school, his home, and the grocery store.

Erwin reached into his backpack and tore a piece of paper from his notebook, fishing out a couple of pens as well. The ugly, scraggly, ripped-out edges of the paper made Levi’s OCD tingle angrily in disgust.

“I live pretty close to school.” Erwin drew a quick scribble of a map. “The park is right behind the football field.” He pointed at the large rectangle that represented the field and dragged his finger over to the amorphous blob that Levi guessed was supposed to be the park.

“If you cut straight through and end up here, go up one more street to Maria, and it’s the second house on the left.” He drew a square where his house was meant to be and highlighted it in blue. “It’s a blue house. Hard to miss with all the white houses on the block.”

Erwin smiled his warm smile at Levi.

“Does it have that dumb smiley face on it too?” Levi snarked at him in reference to the lopsided blue grin Erwin had drawn over the square that was supposed to be his house.

Erwin’s smile morphed into a serious face, the painted half grimacing at Levi intimidatingly. “I’ll paint one on before you get there,” he sassed back.

“Tch.” Levi snatched the paper from Erwin and began meticulously tearing off the scraggly bits from the perforated edge. He started to fold the paper with sharper, more satisfying edges than when he had folded the tissue from earlier, when he noticed the ten digits scrawled in small font at the top corner of the page.

Levi raised his eyebrow and gestured at Erwin with the folded paper in question.

“My cell number,” Erwin clarified, glancing up at the clock and scooting his chair back to stand up. “If you can’t find the blue house with the dumb smiley face on it,” he ended with a small smirk as the bell rang loudly, far sooner than Levi had anticipated. “Can I get your number?”

Levi felt a sudden wave of fresh nerves crashing down on him again, but he nodded. It was weird that such a simple question could make him feel like that. He could pretty much guarantee that no other kid in this school would feel that affected by the same question and it frustrated him.

He was such a loser.

He took the pen Erwin offered him, but he didn’t have any paper on him and Erwin looked like he was itching to leave.

“Hey, I gotta get going. Write it on my hand.”

Writing your phone number on your crush’s hand? That was so _junior high_.

…' _Crush'_...

Levi felt his brain function grind to a halt at the stupidity of that word. The fact that he even _thought_ that word made him feel like an idiot.

He took the hand offered to him; his fingers curled over Erwin’s, slightly calloused from playing football. His own hand looked so small and dainty compared to his, he noticed as he quickly jotted down his number against Erwin’s skin. When he slid his hand away, he tried to ignore how personal of a touch it felt to have the pads of his fingertips brush against Erwin’s rough palm.

“I’ll see you tonight?” Erwin asked expectantly, sounding a little unsure as he edged toward the classroom door.

“...Yeah...Yeah I’ll see you later.” Levi hesitated for a moment. “Tonight,” he added.

Levi watched Erwin’s face morph into that fucking smile again. Even the painted grimace looked like it was genuinely happy this time as Erwin gave him a little wave and left the room, with Levi still standing dumbly by their table.

He didn’t realize how long he was standing there thinking everything over until the teacher told him he had to leave so he could lock up the room and go home, to which Levi snatched his backpack and hastily made his way out of the school.

His pace was brisk as he moved down the sidewalk on his path home. He huffed a breath and crossed his arms over his chest—hands under his arms to keep warm—still worrying about how he was going to fuck up his first time going to someone’s house since kindergarten. A mottled blush stained his cheeks, more from thinking about being alone with Erwin than from the cold that so persistently nipped at his skin. He tried to pull his hood up to hide it, only to catch it on the fuzzy black ears that were still on his head.

 _“Christ.”_ Levi walked faster still, determined to get back home—back to the place where he could freak out or be embarrassed in peace. Back to the only safe haven he had.


	4. That Ain't Nancy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed some of the tags a bit, which doesn't matter much, but I at least wanted to draw your attention to the fact that the rating for this fic WILL go up. Just a head's up! Thanks for reading~

“ _Christ on a bike_.”

Levi paced back and forth, up and down the porch steps. He had gotten there maybe ten minutes ago, but he was still trying in earnest to fight the urge to forget the whole thing and walk all the way back home.

He tried to convince himself otherwise so he could have an excuse to go back home, but he knew he was at the right house. He was sure of it. There weren’t many houses on Maria and the massive house Levi stood in front of was the only blue one on the street, like Erwin had said. It was a lone blue gem in a sea of white.

If that wasn’t enough proof that this was the right house, there was a blue sticky note that bore a crooked little smiley face stuck to the door amidst all the Halloween decorations.

Was that stupid smiley face a beacon of hope and friendship, or was it a harbinger for the fresh hell to come?

Though he continued to debate and pace, he couldn’t help but be a little excited. He was _there_ —just a few feet from actually being at another person’s home. Another person’s home that he had been _invited_ to. To _hang out_.

Fuck. He was excited but his nerves still nagged angrily at him that this could quite possibly be a bad idea—the _worst_ idea. He felt so stupid about always being so conflicted and nervous; it made him want to go home so he wouldn’t have to feel like that at all.

He’d rather feel bored at home than be so strung out, standing there in front of Erwin’s fancy-looking door that led into his huge, expensive-looking house. He wished there was some way he could just shut off his nerves or tear them out. Everything would be so much easier if he didn’t have such shitty anxiety all the time. But his life wasn’t destined to be easy, was it?

Surprisingly though, at that moment he was a lot calmer than he had been when he had first gotten home from school. He had immediately changed his clothes the second he stepped into his house, heading right back out for a long run to wring out some of the stress that might actually be killing him.

He wasn’t very athletic; that was evident from his slighter build that went with his small stature. He wasn’t on any sports teams and slacked off during his first period PE class. If he thought about it, he didn’t really know how to play most sports, let alone actually participate in them. To make things plain and simple, he just didn’t give a shit. But that didn’t stop him from working out by himself when he felt like he needed to.

It felt good to run. There were no rules or teams. There wasn’t anyone else around him. He could go on forever—outrunning his problems, letting them chase him for a while in a dangerous game of tag. Only when he was too spent to run another step did he let the beast catch him again.

He had run to town and back three times, and on his last lap it had started to sprinkle. But the chilling wet drops only encouraged him to run harder, his legs sore and shaking by the time he reached the warmth of his small home again. He only had time for a quick shower (where he had realized with an annoyed grunt and a palm to the face that he had gone for his hours-long run with cat whiskers still painted on his face) before he started for Erwin’s house. He took a long route under the cover of trees hanging over the sidewalk so he wouldn’t get as wet from the rain.

Yet there he was—pacing back and forth in the light rain and late by half an hour because he still hadn’t gotten himself together enough to knock on the fucking door. The wetness was already starting to seep through his hoodie and dampen his skin. He rubbed the back of his neck raw in a motion he had made a habit of since he was a child; it was a nervous gesture that attempted to massage away his stress.

Levi turned around again to pace back to the high, wrought iron fence at the edge of the property, only to be shoved back around by a tiny witch and a firefighter running toward the house behind him, intent on getting their sticky little kid-fingers on some candy.

He watched them squeal and point at the giant, furry, striped spiders that loomed over the doorway in their nest of stringy webbing. The little firefighter stretched up on his toes and pressed the doorbell button with all the excited determination of a child ready for his first handful of Halloween candy for the night.

Wait. Fuck. That meant Erwin was going to answer the door.

A flash of panic struck Levi and he turned back toward the fence to leave, but turned right back around when he was confronted by a barricade of the children’s parents closing in slowly from the end of the long path that lead from the sidewalk.

He wanted to yell obscenities into the sky as he stood in the middle of the paved walkway, glancing back and forth between the door and the fence.

“Trick or Treat!!”

Levi watched the door as he took a few steps backwards toward the street. Erwin opened it and greeted his guests, a bowl of candy in his arm as he towered over the children on his doorstep. He still had his face painted from class.

The little witch cowered under Erwin’s looming stature and the grimacing half of his face, hiding behind her brave firefighter. He looked so huge compared to the kids in their costumes, but Erwin clearly didn’t mean to intimidate them on purpose. He crouched down to their eye level and gave them a kind smile when he offered them the bowl. That seemed to do the trick, as the little witch snuck back out from behind her friend with a shy smile and grabbed a handful of candy to stuff in her plastic, pumpkin-shaped candy bucket.

Erwin still hadn’t seen Levi, busy being a friendly host to his little guests. Levi turned around again for the hundredth time.

Fence. Get to the fence. Home. Fuck it, fuck everything. Go home.

“Levi!”

He froze, shoulders bunching up to his ears. The parents a spare few feet in front of him were giving him weird looks and he just wanted to tell them all to fuck off, but he refrained from doing so in front of their little kids and (mostly) Erwin. Turning and finally facing him, he gave Erwin a try at a smile that he could feel come out way more like a pained grimace than anything that would resemble a friendly facial expression.

Erwin waved him inside eagerly, ignorant to the fact that Levi had been pacing in circles in front of his house like a complete lunatic for nearly fifteen minutes.

He half-jogged up to the door, ignoring the kids that ran past him and back to their parents. He hesitated on the doorstep before finally stepping inside, the door closing heavily with finality behind him. His fate had been sealed.

Holy fuck. Erwin’s house looked even more huge from the inside.

Everything was so modern and clean—so clean, that it was hard to believe that anybody lived here, let alone a teenage boy. Levi loved how pristine it was, but he felt like if he touched anything an alarm might go off and he’d be whisked away by security guards.

Erwin led Levi quickly around the main floor of his house, and when they reached the kitchen Levi changed his mind about the house looking like it hadn’t been lived in.

Nearly every cupboard door was hanging open; there were utensils, pots, pans, containers and this-and-that strewn about everywhere, only a few of which were actually being used. The air was still warm from the stove recently being on.

“What the hell were you even trying to make in here?”

“Just spaghetti,” Erwin replied as he scooted around the huge center island to the end of it, where the burners were built into the smooth stone countertop.

“…Some pretty ambitious spaghetti,” Levi commented, raising an eyebrow as he looked around at the visual clutter before him.

“Shut up,” Erwin muttered at him as he started to put things away. “You can have some if you want. I didn’t know how much to make, so I made the whole box.” He waved noncommittally at the large pot on the stove and gathered some empty containers from the counter to shove them untidily back into their respective cupboards.

Erwin grabbed a plate and gestured at Levi with it, raising his thick painted eyebrow at him.

“Yeah. Sure,” Levi said quietly, standing at the doorway. He was still looking around at everything, trying to absorb it all.

He was in Erwin’s house.

“You’re not a vegetarian, are you?” Erwin asked him. Levi shook his head and looked back through the arch of the open kitchen doors to see two staircases—one on either side of the front door that led upstairs. He was wondering why there needed to be two flights of stairs so close together, when a plate of noodles and sauce was pushed gently into his hand.

“I put meat in the sauce, that’s why I’m asking,” Erwin said through a mouthful of his own pasta. He swallowed thickly, eating like he wasn’t even tasting his food.

“Want something to drink? We got water, Gatorade, milk, OJ…” Erwin opened one side of the huge metallically-gleaming fridge, holding the door open with his body while he slurped up another forkful of spaghetti. “Beer,” he said jokingly, and Levi wrinkled his nose; beer tasted like piss water.

“Mm! Here, you like grape juice, right?” He pulled out a large bottle of deep-red juice and held it over his shoulder; it was one of those glass bottles of the organic stuff that Levi would see at the farmer’s market—a size that was a little too big to drink by himself, though he would probably end up drinking it all anyways.

Levi hummed at him affirmatively, still standing dumbly in the same place with the warm plate in his hand. He didn’t really know what he was supposed to do. He tried to just act casual but he wasn’t sure if he was being awkward, or boring, or weird, or not. Whichever way, Erwin seemed to be perfectly content with having Levi as his guest, as if he didn’t even think twice about him being there, standing in his kitchen and eating his food.

Erwin tucked the bottle under his arm, letting the door swing shut behind him with a rattle from the bottles and jars sitting inside. He grabbed two tall glasses from one of the high cupboards and filled them with ice, balancing them precariously in his free hand.

Levi watched as he moved toward him and the doorway. His face was so calm and content, but the paint around his mouth was a hot mess. He wondered if Erwin was disappointed at all that he didn’t have his cat whiskers on anymore.

“Does that face paint taste good?” Levi asked. “Pretty much gone now with the way you eat like a rabid animal.” Levi’s snark had Erwin narrowing his eyes and pursing his lips.

Levi expected some sort of witty reply but all he got was Erwin sticking his tongue out to run it slowly around the rim of his lips, giving Levi a playful sneer. “ _Delicious_ ,” he teased in a low voice as he bumped Levi out of the doorway, moving past him to the living room that was just around the corner.

Levi stood there with his eyes wide, heart jumping in his chest. Fucking Christ, why did he have to do that? He was just setting himself up to get flustered, wasn’t he? Levi closed his eyes and shook his head, freeing it from the image of Erwin’s tongue and lips that had been burned behind his eyelids.

“Just kidding,” Erwin called from the other room, accompanied by light sputtering noises of him trying to spit paint out of his mouth. “This shit tastes awful, I’ll be right back.”

Rubbing at his cheeks to dispel his blush and pull himself together, Levi followed the path that Erwin had taken and ended up in the living room. A huge TV sat on a stand against the wall accompanied by tall bookcases filled with movies, books and games. Three large, curved couches were arranged in a large U-shape in front of it with a metal-framed glass table sitting in the center.

Erwin had left everything he had been carrying in front of the couch on the left, Levi saw, and he struggled for a moment before he decided to sit on the middle couch that directly faced the TV.

He was by himself now, alone enough to start feeling uncomfortable with his surroundings again. Just the first floor of this house alone was probably three times the size of his entire place. Most of the lights were out and even though the dark didn’t scare Levi, the heavy emptiness of the expansive, unfamiliar rooms unsettled him.

Levi started when the doorbell rang out through the house. He could hear Erwin’s pounding steps as he came down one of the staircases—sounding like he was jumping down every few steps instead of taking each one to take the shortest amount of time to answer the chorus of trick-or-treaters at the door.

The door shut after the loud but quick interaction and the house became silent again.

Erwin came back through the darkness of the other entertainment room that he had shown Levi—the one with a full bar and a pool table. The main floor didn’t have many doors; all the openings to the rooms were wide, high arches and the rooms themselves lead into each other like one big loop. Both entertainment rooms were lined on one side by glass doors that lead outside to a yard that Levi couldn’t see, but assumed was huge and beautiful like everything else.

“Sorry about that.” Erwin sat down, his face scrubbed clean to the point of being a bit red and raw-looking on the one side, especially around his eyebrow where it was still a little dark compared to his other. He leaned into his plate on the table. “So what are we going to watc—” The doorbell cut him off, his fork barely touching his lips.

He gave his spaghetti a frustrated look and set it back down, getting up to answer the door again. On his way back the doorbell rang again and Levi snickered quietly to himself at Erwin’s irritated noise as he went right back to the door. The next time he came back, he had about thirty seconds before it rang again and Erwin looked like he might break something.

“Why don’t you just make a ‘Take some fucking candy and leave me alone’ sign and put the bowl outside?”

Erwin perked up at that. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good idea. I’ll do that.” He stood up again, pacing around like he was looking for paper and something to write with. “I should probably word that a little differently, but I will do that.” He sounded so determined and inspired, it was kind of endearing. It was just a bowl of candy with a shitty paper sign, for chrissake.

When he finally returned and sat down, he was ready to stuff his dinner into his face again. Levi hadn’t touched his own yet, his legs crossed one over the other with his plate sitting on his knee. He didn’t want to be rude and not even taste it, so he twirled some noodles into a tight bunch with his fork and tucked it neatly into his mouth. His pasta was a little cold now, but it wasn’t bad. It was pretty good, actually, if not a little too seasoned.

Levi looked at his high-top Converse resting on his leg—damp from the walk over—then to the highly polished wood floor beneath them, and over to Erwin’s clean, bare feet, and felt a small zap of panic.

“Should I have taken my shoes off?”

“Nah, it’s fine. You can take them off if you want, though.” Erwin wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and smiled at him, sweeping his arm in a wide gesture over the couch. “Make yourself at home.”

Goddamn him. Why did he have to be so nice and generous? Why did he have to smile like that? Why did he just _have_ to make his heart beat faster and warmth spread over his face and stupid little gay thoughts flit through his head?

Levi just nodded stiffly at him, stubbornly deciding to leave his shoes on as Erwin grabbed several remotes from the detailed metal shelf under the glass table. He flipped the television on and signed into his Xbox profile, shoveling more spaghetti into his mouth and slurping loudly as he waited for it to log in. Levi couldn’t help but notice that his gamertag was ‘CommandrEyebrws,’ and he tried his hardest not to make a comment about it.

Erwin opened the bottle of grape juice with a quick twist of his wrist and a sharp pop from the cap, pouring each of them a glass over the half-melted ice.

“So,” Erwin began again, passing Levi his glass of juice and leaning back into his couch. “What are we going to watch tonight? Netflix or...?”

Levi held up a finger and dug his hand into his front hoodie pocket. He tugged out a CD case and waved it casually in the air next to his face. The thing was a hideous, faceted, holographic blue that reflected the light every time it moved, and the vinyl material it was made of was the kind that produced that nails-on-chalkboard reaction when a fingernail accidentally scraped across it. It was a product that could’ve only been spawned from the 90’s, and hideous as it may have been, Levi still thought of it as his most treasured possession; it had been with him as long as he could remember.

“Don’t worry,” Levi assured as he unzipped the case slowly. He thumbed through the discs like he was scanning the pages of a book. “I’ve got you covered.”

 

* * *

 

Levi had picked both of the movies that they had ended up watching. He could tell that Erwin had never really watched horror or suspense movies in his spare time; he hadn’t seen much of anything, so all of the things they watched were completely new to him.

Levi had seen way too many, he had to admit. The majority of the on-demand movies on his cable box at home were from the horror channel and they changed the movies out often, so that was what he preoccupied himself with on his nights at home. He was always watching horror movies, whether it was actually actively watching the movies, or just having them on as background noise while he did homework or cleaned. There was always something new to watch, and he had seen all of the classics.

So far that night, they had watched _The Cabin in the Woods_ and _Saw_. Levi had seen both of those movies dozens of times before, so he enjoyed them like he always did. He felt a little burst of pride that Erwin had never seen either of them before, but he still seemed to have enjoyed them both. He appeared to be into the action/gory genre of horror by the animated way he reacted to everything; the monsters excited him, fascinated him even. If he got the chance, Levi wanted to watch more of those with him, show him some classic movie monsters that he needed to see.

It was kind of fun to watch someone else's reactions to the movies that he loved—to watch Erwin freak out over things, and to know what would happen later and predict how he would react next.

It was like he was sharing a part of himself in a low-key way that didn't make him profoundly uncomfortable.

The only part that did make him uncomfortable, however, was the short sex scene in _Cabin in the Woods_ ; he felt like he was watching porn with his nanna or something. He was just glad that Erwin was on the other couch so he couldn't see him fidget awkwardly behind him, and that Erwin's only real reaction to the scene came when the Buckners came back into the picture and stabbed the girl through her hand.

Thank God for Zombie Redneck Torture Families, right?

But so far, all they had watched were the bloody movies. Gore and monsters. Psychological thriller and horror-comedy. It was nearing midnight, but Levi didn't feel at all sleepy. He wanted to watch something he hadn't seen before. _The Conjuring_ —a supernatural horror.

He had really wanted to see that one when it came out, and he had the disc for it, but had just never gotten around to watching it yet. And now was his chance.

When he moved to get up and change discs, Erwin stood as well. He stretched his arms up and popped his joints, his shirt riding up his stomach as he arched his back to reveal fine golden hair that trailed from his belly button down past the waistband of his pants. Levi looked pointedly away from it to the half empty bag of chips on the table and grabbed a handful, watching the chips in his hand as he ate them instead of at Erwin’s football-fit body.

“It’s almost midnight,” Erwin commented with a small yawn. “Are you going to stay the night?" 

Levi flashed his eyes up at Erwin as he popped the last chip into his mouth. Stay the night… 

“I don’t have to.”

“We’ve got plenty of room, so you’re welcome to stay. Dad’s not here, but he wouldn’t mind anyways. I don’t know if you have to get the okay from your parents, though.”

Levi wanted to laugh bitterly, but he didn’t. “They don’t care.” Well, that wasn’t really a lie. “I didn’t bring anything with me, though.”

“You can borrow stuff if you need,” Erwin offered. “Or we can drop by your place and grab a few things.”

“No,” Levi responded a little too quickly. “...I’ll just borrow a blanket or something.” 

“Done deal.” Erwin clapped his hands together affirmatively. “I’ll go grab some from upstairs then.”

Levi’s eyes followed Erwin as he slipped into a small room beside the living room they were in. He could see the metallic gleam of washers through the doorway, so he assumed that it was Erwin’s laundry room—all cold tile floor and shiny machines. He returned with two giant bags of dry cat food hefted over one of his shoulders that he shifted up more with a jolt from his arm.

“I’m gonna go feed the boys real quick, too,” Erwin explained vaguely. “Want to come with me?”

Levi shook his head. Cats didn’t like him. Even though Erwin’s were potentially more friendly than the cat that liked to hang around his house, he still chose to decline the offer. “I’ll just stay down here.” 

“Alright. Be right back.” Erwin disappeared once again into the darkness, the sound of his footsteps fading up one of the sets of stairs.

Levi stood in the middle of the living room, alone again and not knowing what he should do. He still felt like he shouldn’t touch anything, but looking around couldn’t hurt. He scoped around the room, eyeing a large stone fireplace on the wall behind the couches that he hadn’t particularly noticed earlier. The mantel was lined with photographs in straight, flat black frames. They were mostly variations of a man, a woman, and a child.

Family photos. Levi didn’t know if he even had any of those. Maybe there were some at his nanna’s house somewhere, but he couldn’t remember seeing himself in any of them. 

Erwin’s family looked happy and perfect—everything Levi’s wasn’t.

His father looked intelligent and kind, his mother beautiful and strong. Erwin was just a child in these pictures, maybe seven or eight years old. He looked like one of those kids who was going to accomplish anything he wanted to when he grew up, his eyes so bright with a light of determination and curiosity. 

But he still had those huge eyebrows when he was a kid. Like a puppy with huge paws, Erwin seemed to have grown into them so they didn’t look as ridiculous as they used to.

There was only one photograph on the mantle of Erwin that looked recent. He was in his football uniform, dirtied and worn; the picture was probably taken after a game. Hanji was laying on his side on the ground in an attempt at an “alluring” pose: hand propping up his head, one of his legs cocked up while his other hand rested on his hip. Erwin was standing in the middle, smiling so damn wide with his arms around his teammates, Mike and… Levi squinted and stepped closer to the photo.

...Nile?

Levi’s face fell as his eyes fixed on Nile’s form imprinted forever next to Erwin on a glossy sheet of paper behind the thin glass of the frame. He had never seen Nile smile before, and seeing it in the photo made it feel like the gesture was somehow more unnatural. It was as if they were two completely different people—perhaps a look-alike—but it was unmistakably him.

He wondered if Erwin was still friends with him. He hadn’t ever seen Nile at Erwin’s table at lunch, but he hadn’t seen him in the cafeteria anywhere else either, for that matter. If he was in the cafeteria at all, he would’ve most likely made his obnoxious presence known to Levi. But just because he wasn’t there during lunch didn’t mean that he and Erwin weren’t still friends.

“I’m back!” Erwin announced so suddenly that it made Levi jump a little.

“Sorry, did I scare you?” Erwin teased. “Movies got you jumpy?”

“As if,” Levi drawled, dragging his eyes away from the picture on the mantel and ignoring the questions he wanted to ask Erwin about it.

Erwin had changed into a different shirt and a pair of loose flannel pajama pants, and had brought down a heap of blankets and pillows. He yawned loudly and plopped them down onto the unused couch on the right as Levi moved back to the Xbox to change discs.

“Are you tired already, old man?”

Erwin scoffed at him, but yawned again despite himself. “Maybe. I brought you some pj pants if you wanted to borrow them.” He tossed the pair at Levi who caught them, his eyes widening slightly in surprise. “So you don’t have to sleep in those tight-ass jeans.”

Levi held the pants up to himself and raised a skeptical eyebrow at Erwin when he saw that they touched the floor and reached up past his belly button at the same time.

“Yeah...they might be a little big on you,” Erwin remarked with a laugh. “If you’re gonna change, hurry up before I fall asleep.” He yawned again and it forced a sympathetic reaction from Levi, though he tried his hardest to fight it. Erwin tapped the button on the controller to start the movie but paused it right away, waiting for Levi to quickly change in bathroom.

After peeling himself out of his skinny jeans, Erwin’s pj pants felt like a tent on him—loose and billowy; he had to roll down the top of them several times just to get the hems off the floor. When he came back and sat back down, Erwin moved to sit with him on the middle couch, tossing one of the pillows to Levi.

Erwin draped a blanket over his lap, and Levi flinched when he spread it over the couch so it covered Levi’s legs too. He slouched back in his seat and got comfortable while Levi fidgeted with the edge of the blanket that covered the both of them. Again, Levi felt like he was the only one that felt awkward about the familiarity that Erwin already showed toward him. Crossing his legs under himself—in Erwin’s pants, under Erwin’s blanket—he willed himself to calm down again.

“I haven’t seen this one yet, so sorry if it sucks,” Levi commented distractedly.

“What’s this one again?”

“ _The Conjuring_. It’s not monsters. It’s ghosts and demons or whatever.”

“So it’s less scary than all the bloody gore, right?”

“Kinda depends, I guess. Though there’s probably tons of jumpscares,” he warned as he pressed the play button on the Xbox controller.

Levi learned quickly that for Erwin, no, it was not less scary than all the bloody gore. Right away the creepy music had him tensing at Levi’s side. The first image that showed on the screen was of a doll that could in no right be called cute. Who would ever even make a doll that terrifying? Levi smiled into the edge of his sweatshirt and tucked his hands into his sleeves. It was amazing.

“Nope. No. Nope.” Erwin had another opinion about the doll. “God, why does it have to be so _creepy?_ ”

“What’s the matter, Erwin? You scared already?” Levi smirked, the gesture pulling at the corners of his lips. Erwin shifted down a little on the couch, pulling the blanket up protectively.

“ _No._ ” 

Levi knew he was a big fat liar. He knew that the way Erwin sunk down on the couch was so he wouldn’t be so exposed to the open room behind him. He knew because he used to do that too when he was a little kid, home alone and watching horror movies late at night in the dark. The further into the couch he got, the less likely it was that any monster would be able to get him. The only difference now was that Levi was older and appreciated the creepiness of horror movies like a fine art, and Erwin was the one being the scared weenie even though nothing had even happened yet.

Most of the first twenty minutes of the movie went with Erwin’s neurotic babbling: “Based on a true story? Fuck that.” “Why aren’t you listening to the dog? The dog knows what’s up, _leave the fucking house._ ” “Fuck you, the dog is going to die isn’t it?” “They’re playing some blindfold hiding game, I know they’re going to do some bullshit scary crap with that later, I know they will.” “No don’t go in the dark basement. Oh, there’s no lights, that’s great. That’s just fucking great.” “ _Why won’t you people just leave already._ ”

It was kind of hilarious how Erwin was usually quite composed, but now just the first taste of this movie had him swearing almost as much as Levi did on a regular basis.

“This movie is the worst. Why did you pick this?” Erwin groaned from over the edge of the blanket. “Let’s go back to the monster movies.”

“Nothing has even happened yet, you big baby.”

Erwin bumped him in the leg with his knee for that remark, but Levi just kept watching with a smug little grin on his face. Erwin turned his attention back to the TV where the shot panned slowly up one of the sleeping girls. Everything was slow and still and silent. The tension was great in this movie, Levi absolutely loved it.

The girl was suddenly tugged by her foot and Erwin sucked in a sharp startled breath.

“ _That_ isn’t nothing _,_ ” Erwin hissed at Levi, but he was ignored.

_Not funny, Nancy._

_What?_

_Stop grabbing my foot._

“ _That ain’t Nancy,_ ” Erwin whimpered in a voice so pathetic that it made Levi actually bark out a laugh before he could muffle it with his sleeve. Erwin bumped him with his knee again for laughing at him, but this time he didn’t pull it away. He kept it pressed up against the side of Levi’s thigh, its presence painfully obvious. He could feel just from that small amount of contact how tense the scene was making Erwin. 

The scene ended before anything else happened and Erwin relaxed for about twelve seconds before the movie switched to the father following disembodied noises around the house, the tension rising once again. The father walked up the stairs to suddenly find one of the daughters standing at the top, and Erwin jumped.

Levi was starting to think this movie just may have been a bad idea if Erwin really was getting so worked up over it.

“This movie is so good,” Levi muttered under his breath after another long while, despite his doubts about Erwin’s enjoyment. He stared intently at the screen while the mother looked into the spinning mirror of a music box, waiting for someone to appear behind her.

“You really like this?”

“Yeah it’s actually a creepy movie for once. Not all that campy bullshit that tries too hard. It’s all suspense and anticipation.”

“If you say so.”

Another scene of the two girls in their dark bedroom dimmed the light of the living room to a dull blue.

_Stop it, Nancy. It’s not funny anymore. I’m trying to sleep, please stop grabbing my feet._

The girl got pulled far more than a gently intimidating tug and Erwin pressed closer again, his leg right up against Levi’s.

“Don’t look under the bed. Don’t look under the bed. What are you doing?” Erwin muttered. Levi shushed him and kept his eyes glued to the screen, his eyes flicking back and forth over the picture. In the movie, Christine watched the bedroom door as it slowly creaked and groaned, closing a few inches by itself. Erwin pressed close enough that Levi could feel the warmth and nerves radiating off his body. Levi held his breath tight in his lungs, and it wasn’t because of the movie.

_Nancy? Nancy?_

_What are you doing? Christine? Are you alright?_

_Do you see it?_

_See what?_

Erwin shifted even closer to Levi. His eyes were wide and fixed on the screen but he scooted closer still, like he didn’t even realize he was doing it; he was just seeking out human contact to ground himself into reality as he watched this family’s lives go to literal Hell.

Christine pointed shakily at the bedroom door. The dark corner could be hiding anything. Levi shifted a little, excited. It was things like that that were the creepiest—the unknown. Things you couldn’t see, but your imagination filled in the gaps with the most terrifying things it could conjure.

_There’s someone behind the door._

“Fuck no,” Erwin muttered again. Levi tore his eyes away for only a second, but it was enough time for him to fully realize how close against him Erwin was now: leg to leg, shoulder to shoulder. If he moved any closer he’d practically be sitting on him.

_I don’t see anyone._

_It’s looking right at us._

Nancy got up from her bed to go check behind the door. In the darkness it still seemed like nothing was there...but in that nothingness, anything could be hiding.

_Nancy, don’t. Nancy!_

“Don’t do it Nancy. Don’t be the hero.” Erwin’s whole body tightened up.

_Look, there’s no one here. See? Ugh, it’s that smell again._

_Oh, my God._

Levi started the slightest bit when he felt the light touch of Erwin’s fingers against his leg, the soft fabric of Erwin’s too-big-for-him pajama pants pressing into his skin from the pressure of it.

_It’s standing right behind you._

Nancy slowly turned around, the anticipation of what might happen hanging in the air over Erwin and Levi’s heads. The fingers against Levi’s pant leg curled into the fabric, the touch harder with each passing second as they waited for something to happen. Silence hovered over the scene and it felt like everyone, movie and real life, was holding their breath.

The door suddenly slammed shut casting everything into darkness; Erwin jumped like a frightened cat, his hand digging painfully into Levi’s leg for a brief moment before he released all his tension into an angry groan at the movie for scaring him.

“Ow, fuck,” Levi complained when Erwin’s hand moved away, rubbing at his thigh to rid it of the strange feeling—the ghost of his grip still remaining for a few seconds even after his hand had left.

“I’m sorry.” Erwin looked a little embarrassed, his hand hovering over Levi’s leg but not touching him—not sure how he should apologize for that. If it wasn’t so dark, Levi could’ve sworn Erwin had a faint blush dusting over his cheeks. Erwin moved away, leaving a bit of space between them.

Levi frowned a little. He felt...disappointed?

Erwin had been so warm. Even if he had just grabbed his leg in fright, the pressure of him against his side was something that Levi was already starting to miss. It made him nervous, sure; any form of physical contact made him anxious because he was so unused to it.

But somehow Erwin pressing up against him felt so comfortable, like it was something familiar. Something that he had once forgotten but now remembered. Something he should essentially feel with other people, but didn’t. It was only him. Why was that?

“What if my house is haunted, Levi?” Erwin asked him after he jumped again from the loud crash of pictures falling off the walls.

Levi tried not to roll his eyes as he looked over at Erwin. “Was it haunted before?”

“...No.”

“Then it shouldn’t be haunted now, right?”

“I guess… Yeah. No, you’re right, I'm just being dumb.”

The discordant notes of the piano in the basement drifted up through the stairwell as the mother investigated a giggling voice that took her around the house.

“Unless...” Erwin glanced over at Levi, who was trying to hide a little smirk as he kept his eyes on the screen. “Unless... _I’m haunted.”_ He met Erwin’s eyes, mock terror shining in his own. “And I brought something here.”

Erwin held his breath, eyes wavering over Levi’s frightened face. They stayed like that for a moment, the air still between them until Levi snorted a laugh through his nose and turned back to the movie. “Don’t tell me you actually believed that.”

Erwin shoved him, knocking him over into the armrest. “Don’t do that,” he complained quietly.

“Don’t be so easy to scare.”

They both focused back at the screen when one of the girls gasped and looked at the top of the wardrobe, to where some sort of demon-ghost was crouching on top and leapt down at her. Erwin wheezed in a startled breath that only proved Levi’s point, and he put a hand over his eyes in exasperation. “Goddammit.”

“Want me to turn it off?”

“No.” Erwin sounded determined when he answered, pulling his hand away from his face and fixing his eyes back onto the TV with rapt attention. “I can do this.”

He didn’t sound quite so sure when the paranormal investigators arrived and looked less than optimistic. He started to shift a little closer to Levi again but looked like he was trying his hardest to stay where he was. Nothing too scary was happening...yet. The calm before the storm.

When things got scary again (the real demon shit), Erwin hesitantly inched toward Levi again. Levi quietly steeled himself, shutting his eyes for a moment. He shifted towards Erwin—not quite touching—and rearranged the blanket so they were both under it more comfortably. His eyes danced around, avoiding looking right at Erwin.

Apparently the movement was the encouragement that Erwin needed, because he shifted closer and met Levi halfway. He snuggled right up to him like it was nothing, and Levi had to refrain from doing something stupid like leaning his head against his shoulder. This wasn’t anything flirty. It was just two guys watching a horror movie.

Was this something normal for Erwin? Did he do this with his friends? With Hanji or Mike or Petra? Levi wondered if Erwin would do this with those flirting girls from earlier. He didn’t know if Erwin just had a very small personal bubble or if he only did this with him.

But why would he? What had he done to gain that privilege? The whole situation made it apparent to Levi just how little social interaction he had experienced.

Levi started to nod off a bit towards the end of the movie. He was so warm. It was over sooner than he expected, and that was definitely not because he was focusing the majority of his attention on Erwin. Definitely not.

He was jostled into wakefulness by Erwin sitting up and tossing the blanket off of himself. He exited out of the movie, probably because the credits were accompanied by constant, creepy ambient music and he didn’t want that to be the soundtrack to him walking around in his own house.

“Gotta piss,” he expressed shortly, shifting his gaze from room to room. He was scoping out the darkness, paranoid.

“Thanks for the announcement,” Levi droned. He pulled the blanket around himself and settled more comfortably into the couch. His blinking came slow, tired.

“I’ll be back in a sec.” He walked through the doorway toward the kitchen and the bathroom and paused to turn back to Levi. “If I don’t come back, tell Mike and Hanji they can’t have my things.”

Levi rolled his eyes lazily. “Yeah, whatever.”

Alone in the living room, Levi was left to his sleepy thoughts. He couldn’t believe how well he and Erwin got along, how comfortable they were. It made him want to entertain the thought that they might end up very good friends—close friends. They were already on the road there.

Levi didn’t really feel like he deserved any of it, though. He was trying to do better. He _was_ doing better. But that still didn’t change the fact that he had messed up and wasted most of his life before he moved to this town. He didn’t feel like he should receive any appreciation when he had just been a disappointment his whole life.

Erwin didn’t see that—Levi _knew_ he didn’t see that—but it was only logical that he didn’t view him as another disappointment when he had only met him after he had started trying to clean up his act. If he had known him maybe a year ago, they definitely wouldn’t be friends.

It terrified Levi that he wanted this friendship so badly. He didn’t want to seem like he was clingy or needy, but he wanted to hold onto it. No, "want" wasn't the right word. He _needed_ to hold onto it, like a single lifesaver ring in the middle of a vast, empty ocean.

There must have been some reason Erwin stuck around. Levi couldn’t really say what exactly, but there had to be some sort of reason. Didn’t there?

He looked through the archway to see the kitchen light on and heard Erwin banging around with things. At least, he thought it was Erwin. It could by all rights be some ghost-demon terrorizing Erwin’s kitchen; it would probably result in a similar state of disarray either way.

Erwin came back with a couple cans of soda under his arm and another plate to add to the mess that had already accumulated on the previously spotless glass table. Levi had attempted to tidy up earlier only to have Erwin chastise him for trying to clean when he was a guest.

Erwin's eyes still shifted here and there, darting in the direction of any small sound, any tiny movement. He was still jumpy from the movie, and Levi couldn’t blame him. The movie was pretty creepy to watch so late at night, in the dark, with the wind whistling through the trees outside and rain pattering against every curve and angle of the huge house.

The clatter of the plate against the glass of the table was loud in the silence of the room and it made Levi frown under the blanket. When Erwin nudged him, Levi’s eyes snapped open. When had he closed them? He was just looking at Erwin a moment ago. What time was it even?

“Hey, you want half of this?”

Levi blinked heavily and sat up. Yet another sandwich on yet another plate.

“Do you ever stop eating?” Levi grumbled quietly as he reached for a fresh can of fruity soda.

“You callin’ me fat?” Erwin mumbled through a mouthful of some other unidentified food-stuff while he looked through a shelf of movies. With the faintest of pouts, he lifted up his shirt, pinching the barely-there flab over his abs. Levi tried not to stare too much, obscuring his face with his can as he tilted it up for another sip.

“I don’t think that can even be qualified as fat.”

“Must be my genes,” Erwin said offhandedly, letting his shirt drop down when he picked a movie off the shelf. He rubbed the flat expanse of his stomach and flashed Levi a winning smile. “I’ve got my mom’s sweet abs.”

Levi snorted and huddled himself a little closer with the blanket. “Your mom does not look like she’d have abs like yours.”

A flash of confusion crossed Erwin’s face, but then he smiled softly, turning to change discs in the player. “You were looking at the photos over the fireplace?”

Levi didn’t answer, just shrugging slightly when Erwin made his way back over to the couch.

“You want some?” he asked again, grabbing a knife from another plate and bringing Levi’s attention back to the sandwich that had almost been forgotten. “It’s PB, honey, and banana.”

“Sounds sticky.”

“Sounds _delicious_ ,” Erwin corrected.

Levi gave in and agreed, too tired to sass or protest anymore. Erwin positioned the knife over the sandwich, ready to cut it down the middle when Levi interrupted him. He touched a fingertip delicately to the edge of the plate and turned it under Erwin’s knife until it lined up on the diagonal. Erwin didn’t even question the correction, slicing into the bread all the same.

He handed Levi the neat triangle and started the next movie.

“Why are we watching another?” Levi asked, nibbling at his sandwich. The honey was very sweet, but the peanut butter was rich enough and the bananas were subtly plain enough to balance it out. He smacked his lips a little against the stickiness and took another bite.

“I’m not going to sleep having nightmares about gross demon-ghost-doll moms, okay?”

He had put on _Wreck-It Ralph_ ; the bright colors of the disc menu glared into Levi’s eyes, making him squint.

They both finished their last bit of food for the night and settled down into the blankets. The lightly curved couch was big enough for them to lay in opposite directions, Erwin on his back and Levi curled on his side, but not without some form of bodily contact that Levi was constantly aware of. Though the feeling of the side of Erwin’s leg pressed snugly along the length of his body behind him was enough to keep his attention, he couldn’t help but close his eyes and drift off.

He woke up for only a moment to hear Erwin drowsily mutter, “That’s her. That’s my wife,” when Calhoun showed up in her armored combat suit and hot pixie-bob haircut, ready for war against a horde of Cy-Bugs. Of course that’s what Erwin’s type was: tall, hot, tough babes. Badass ladies. Not short...unappealing...anxiety-ridden, bad-tempered guys.

Levi thumped his head back on the arm of the sofa and fell asleep faster than he could think of more things to be upset about. He didn’t dream in the time it took for him to wake up again. He thought he might have been out for only a few minutes, but when he turned his head to squint at the TV, he saw that the credits had already started to roll.

He seemed to have sunk down in the couch a bit while he had slept, now farther away from the edge than he remembered being. He was leaning halfway onto Erwin’s leg, and when he shifted he felt an usual weight over his feet. Blinking heavily, he looked down to see that Erwin had his hand resting around his ankles, holding them like one would a teddy bear. His chest rose and fell, slow and even, fast asleep.

The quiet whoosh of a train brought Levi’s attention back to the screen. A cartoon was playing, black and white. He figured it must have been the short that went with this movie—it was a Pixar film after all. He’d never seen it before, so he focused his eyes on it as best he could in his drowsy, half-asleep state.

The animation was beautiful, really. There was so much emotion in those simple lines. And the music, too. Levi always loved how much feeling could go into music; no matter the song, there was always a picture in his head to accompany the sounds. That’s all Levi’s art ever was—music.

He had to admit, the guy in the short was pretty cute. He was so in love with this girl he had just met at the train station. He tried so hard just to get her attention. He’d do anything to see her again, to talk to her again. They just ran into each other one day, and they were meant to be.

Levi looked back over at Erwin. They just ran into each other one day...and they were meant to be.

He wondered if something like that could really happen. Was it possible in real life, or just reserved for the movies—the black and white animated worlds of sentient paper airplanes?

Erwin shifted in his sleep, pulling his arm from Levi’s legs and crossing it over his chest. He turned over, pressing himself into the back of the couch and falling back into an immobile state of slumber.

No, Levi thought.

Lifting up the edge of the blanket gingerly, he slid out from under it and off of the couch, careful not to rouse Erwin. He debated going home for a moment, but he figured if he just up and left in the middle of the night that would have been rude—especially when Erwin had been so hospitable to him—so he scrapped the idea.

He chose instead to arrange the spare pillows and blankets over one of the other couches into a suitable bed and laid down. The soft fabric was cold and uninviting from its recently unoccupied condition; he was already starting to miss the warmth that Erwin always seemed to radiate.

Levi spared another glance at Erwin, sleeping with his back to him, relaxed and vulnerable. He turned off the Xbox and TV, the only light in the room now coming from the moon glowing through one of the high windows that didn't have a curtain.

No, fate bringing people together like that hardly happened in real life. Why would it happen to him?


	5. Welcome to Hell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again, late by a million years, as always ;~; I have hit a little snag, I guess you could say, in that I am in an on/off writer's block with this fic so that's why it takes me so long to get the chapters out. I did, however, take the time to write up a long fic plan, so I know where this fic is going and hopefully that will help me out some in getting chapters out quicker.
> 
> I did write two other fics in the meantime: a long A/B/O oneshot (that will probably become a short series) and a shorter oneshot for Bottom Erwin week. So, check those out if that's anything y'all are interested in ^^
> 
> Anyways, thanks for sticking with me and enjoy the chapter!

Class could go only one of two ways: it could interest Levi, holding his attention for more than a minute and making him actually want to learn for once—or it could bore him to the point that pressing his face into the metal spiral of his notebook was less painful than listening to the teacher's incessant droning for an hour.

Unfortunately, it looked like that day was turning out to be the latter.

He had practically been asleep during PE, limply swinging his badminton racquet and not attempting in the slightest to make contact with the birdie. He was so far from breaking a sweat that he wouldn’t be surprised if the coach didn’t give him any participation points for the day.

Chem was equally vapid and snore-worthy, and English was even more so. That was where he currently resided, face smashed firmly into the dark space he had created with his arms and hood. He sat in the very back of the room and it was dark—as they were watching some terrible old movie version of _Jane Eyre_ —so he could go by virtually unnoticed by the teacher.

He didn't think about much, just listening to the sound of his own breathing against the paper of his notebook and tuning out the painfully awkward dialogue of the film.

He was starting to drift off when he felt a hand touch his back—which normally would have startled him and had him threatening the person by questioning their value of the vitality of all their fingers—but the touch was light and seemed somehow familiar. It rubbed over his back, calming as a mother comforting her child.

Another hand joined it and rubbed up his back to his shoulders, where they began to massage them with rolling palms. They worked up his neck, the kneading pressure loosening the tight knots in his muscles and making his forehead press further into his folded arms. The massage against his neck seemed to melt his stress away—like when he rubbed at it himself—and a little groan of pleasure slipped from Levi's mouth as he succumbed to the relaxing, blissful touch.

Who was doing that?

Levi slowly sat up but was greeted by darkness when the warm hands slid up to cover his eyes. He couldn't see, but he could feel by how the pressure of the fingers over his eyes shifted and the way that their thumbs brushed his cheekbones that they were now standing in front of him.

"What are you doing?" Levi whispered, somehow more intrigued than annoyed. Was the whole class watching this as it was happening?

A warmth pressed against his lips, and only when it left did Levi realize that he had just been kissed. His face started to warm and he licked his lips self-consciously. Who the hell would want to kiss him? More importantly, who the hell _did_ just kiss him?

The mysterious lips pressed to his again, this time more firmly as they parted and staggered with his own. Levi had never kissed anyone; he didn't know what to do, but still he leaned forward and started to kiss back. The slide of their lips made Levi feel like his whole body was tingling, his nerve-endings alive. Whoever this was, they tasted sweet and warm and Levi wanted more of it.

His breath caught in his throat when the pleasant wetness of the person's tongue brushed against his bottom lip gently and the lips sucked lightly at his. He met the touch tentatively—a careful, almost shy, brush of tongue that seemed to spark something wild in the other. He couldn't help but let out a breathy moan when the kiss suddenly became more intense, the lips persistent and hungry and lighting a fire in Levi's chest.

When he brought his hands up to cover the ones over his eyes, the kissing stopped. There was something familiar about those hands—large, warm, and a little rough around the edges—though he still couldn't quite place them with the body they were attached to.

Levi tugged lightly at the hands but they didn't budge, keeping him in the dark. The lips brushed against his again, but that's all they did; they just rubbed teasingly against Levi's, never pressing any closer to give him a proper kiss.

The noise that left Levi when the stranger's tongue suddenly slipped into his mouth was almost embarrassing. He pressed forward into the warm mouth, rubbing his tongue against the other's and chasing after it until it pulled away again and he let out a quiet, impatient whine.

"Who...?" he tried breathlessly, scrunching his eyelids against the fingers covering them as if he could somehow detect who it was that way.

The lips against his smiled and though he couldn't see it, Levi could picture that smile perfectly. He thought about that smile too much to forget a single detail.

"Erwin?"

The quiet chuckle that followed confirmed for Levi who it was, but he frowned when Erwin started shaking him by the shoulders, jostling him around and making his neck hurt from the force of it.

“What the hell are you—”

"Levi!"

" _What?!_ " Levi whipped backwards, grunting in pain when his notebook ripped from his face and left a sore indent that traveled from his forehead, over his eye, and halfway down his cheek. He looked around quickly, confused and disoriented. "Where am I?"

"You're in English and the bell rang three minutes ago."

Levi blinked up at his teacher, rubbing his face where the spiral imprint was; the side of his chin was damp and he flushed with embarrassment when he finally realized that he had fallen asleep in class and had _dreamed about Erwin kissing him_. And he had _drooled_.

He rubbed furiously at his chin with his sleeve as he gathered his things, ignoring the students who filed into class and moved around him to take their seats. The teacher gave him one of those patented-teacher-looks before she went back to her desk: the look that said something like, "I know you're a tired, overworked high school student and you should really take a nap, but don't do it in my class again."

He didn't care what she thought, though. The only thing he was concerned about was if he had made any embarrassing sounds out loud.

And what it would feel like to kiss Erwin in reality.

 

* * *

 

Levi stared a little too intently at his drawing. It was yet another perspective assignment that could've easily been done by a six-year-old, so he would spare no mistake however small. 

His ruler was adjusted in miniscule amounts, almost obsessively sure that his alignment was perfect and even taking into account the width of the lead of his pencil. _There_ , he concluded to himself, _that was perfect_.

Slowly dragging his pencil down the straight edge, he started from one faint dot and trailed the line toward the other.

"Hey." A bump to his shoulder jostled his arm and Levi watched in horror as the line skewed horribly off track, the lead pressing into the paper too hard and ensuring that when he erased the crooked line, there would still be an impression left there—forever haunting him.

"Whoops, sorry," Erwin said with an apologetic cringe. Levi didn’t look at him, highly unamused and a little peeved; his temper had gotten worse lately, but he somehow had the will to refrain from lashing out at anyone. He could control himself, he kept reminding over and over. But the more he reminded himself, the less he started to believe it was true.

He had nearly gotten into trouble so many times that week—the closest call being that day when he had snapped at his math teacher. Miraculously he had gotten away with it, but only because he had gotten the highest score on their last three tests. He’d still been embarrassingly reprimanded in front of the whole class though, much to Nile’s supreme delight—the fucking shithead.

He didn’t know what it was that was making him suddenly more agitated and feeling like utter shit. Things had actually been going pretty well for him, so why did he feel like he was getting worse and worse? It was as if some external being didn’t like the fact that he was feeling kind of good for once, and it wanted to put a stop to it.

Or perhaps it was the contrary—something _internal_. Maybe he just couldn’t accept feeling so good when he had felt so horribly for so long.

It had been a couple of weeks since that first night they hung out, on Halloween; it was now the middle of November. Crisp air and crisp leaves. Crisper attitudes.

To Levi’s amazement, Erwin had asked him over again several times since then, and he had accepted. They didn’t get to do much during the week besides reading and homework (Erwin didn’t want to put off any of it since he spent his Fridays and weekends at games and with football friends), but the company turned out to be really nice for Levi. Even if they didn’t talk a whole lot when they were studying, the quiet white noise of another person in the room was relaxing, almost meditative.

Levi got more done when he was sitting in Erwin’s living room—his books and papers strewn about and mingling with Erwin’s—than when he was at his own home, by himself. In a way, it encouraged him to actually work rather than idle around his house procrastinating: cleaning this, tidying that.

He wondered if some small part of himself was starting to consider that room as another place he could call “home.” He couldn’t consider Erwin’s entire house as another home, though; he had only visited a handful of times and he still hadn’t been upstairs or seen Erwin’s room. He hadn’t even met his parents yet.

He had learned the last time he was over that Erwin’s mom was a businesswoman—always off on important business trips, doing businessy things with her business partners. She was currently somewhere in Europe, so he figured he probably wouldn’t be meeting her any time soon.

His father was around, though a little ways out of town at the university where he worked as a professor or a doctor or something, Levi couldn’t remember. He apparently got home late a lot, usually after Levi would leave, so he had never met him either.

That was okay, though. Parents didn’t tend to like him all that much. They saw his delinquent behavior and grumpy attitude and immediately put up their guards, like they were expecting him to lose his mind at them or steal their jewelry or some shit.

He’d never quite gotten to that level where he had lost his cool at someone who didn’t deserve it, yet lately he felt like it was starting to get to that point. He wouldn’t be surprised if he did blow up, though he couldn’t predict exactly when it would happen—his bomb had a hair trigger and it just depended on what sorry ass would be the one to accidentally bump it.

But if he did lose his mind, it wouldn’t be in front of Erwin. He would make sure of that.

He felt another nudge, this time with more purpose. " _Yes?_ " Levi replied quickly, albeit irritatedly.

“Could you do a favor for me?”

Levi should’ve outright refused, what with his sullied drawing, but Erwin was giving him the faintest hint of the puppy eyes.

What a manipulative bastard, trying to be cute and shit.

“Depends.” Levi rubbed away the crooked line on his page, sweeping up and pinching the eraser shavings into a little pile off to the side of the paper. He frowned when he could see that inevitable ghost line that stayed behind on the page, the light casting the tiniest shadow into the dent and making it more apparent. He debated restarting the entire assignment, but quickly decided that it wasn’t worth his time.

He lined up his ruler, eyeing Erwin pointedly and daring him to bump him again as he positioned the tip of his pencil at his mark for the second time.

Erwin cooperatively remained still, continuing on with his request. “If you’re not doing anything after class, could you film our practice for us? Hanji broke the last two tripods.” He said the last part like he wasn’t surprised in the slightest, and that Levi shouldn’t be either; Hanji had a tendency to be a little rough in his enthusiasm. “I’ll buy you lunch or something sometime for your trouble,” Erwin added.

 _Ah, yes_ , Levi thought. _Bribe me_.

“Better not be cafeteria food,” Levi countered as he pulled his pencil along the ruler to finish his last line.

“No, no, no,” Erwin assured. “Have you been to that little burger place downtown? By the bowling alley?”

“Nope,” he answered without much thought.

“You don’t go downtown much, do you?”

Levi felt the tips of his ears warm. He both hated and secretly loved how Erwin seemed to be able to read his tone so easily. And he remembered every little detail, every piece of trivia, every bit of information. He could probably tell Levi things about himself that he didn’t even know.

“Whatever gave you that idea?” he sassed casually.

“I think you’d like this place," Erwin continued. "Their burgers are... _so good_.” Levi almost laughed when he glanced over at Erwin; his eyes were practically glazed over at the thought of this goddamn burger. This guy and food...ridiculous. Levi didn’t know how he packed it all away so well.

“So, will you help me out?”

Levi sighed through his nose, rising from his chair with his assignment and glancing at Erwin’s page before taking it as well to turn them both in to the bin at the front. He sat back down heavily, leaning low in his seat and lowering the volume of his music so he could hear Erwin a little better.

“Yeah, I guess,” he said finally.

“ _Yes_ ,” Erwin sighed with relief, “thank you, you’re a life-saver.” Levi’s flush started to trail from his ears to the tops of his cheeks at Erwin’s words, but his heart nearly stopped when he felt Erwin’s friendly hand pat him on the shoulder, rubbing into the fabric of his hoodie for a mere second before he pulled it away.

Levi was glad Erwin didn’t have some sort of Vulcan mind-meld capability, so he couldn’t feel how the touch made a spike of arousal shoot through him. The false memory of his dream—Erwin’s hands massaging into his shoulders, his mouth connected with his, his tongue sliding slickly against his own—flickered through his head and he found himself staring at Erwin’s lips as he continued to speak.

It was strange how a dream could feel so real, when in reality you weren’t physically feeling anything. He had a vague, fading recollection of what those lips felt like, but he didn’t know if that was how they actually felt. They probably weren’t as soft and gentle, Levi thought as he watched Erwin bite his bottom lip and worry it between his teeth; he probably made his lips chapped from doing that. But he wouldn’t mind kissing them if they were a little chapped, it would still feel good.

...Not that Levi had any personal experience with kissing, but he was sure it would still be nice— _really nice_ —if it was with the right person.

“Levi?”

For the first and only time in his life, Levi thanked his parents for something: giving him his name. Watching Erwin voice the sounds was a blessing with the way the tip of his tongue pressed to his front teeth with the first syllable, and how his bottom lip pulled between his teeth with the last.

“What?”

“Did you hear what I said, space cadet?” Erwin asked with a small laugh.

Levi turned away from him to pack some things back into his bag on the other side of his chair, masking the true purpose for the movement which was to hide his face which had probably turned beet-red from thinking about those fucking lips on his own and...other places too.

“No. What was that?”

“It wasn’t that important, anyways. I was just saying you don’t really have to do much besides get everyone in the frame and make sure it’s recording. So it'll be easy." Levi nodded. "And probably a little boring," he added apologetically, to which Levi gave a casual shrug.

Levi stood as the bell rang, poking Erwin lightly in the arm with his finger. "Better be a good burger." Erwin just flashed Levi that smile and nodded, standing to follow him out the door. Levi turned left to head down the stairs and strode lazily down the hall until Erwin caught up to him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders.

"Wh...what are you—?" Levi sputtered as Erwin steered him around to face the opposite direction.

"We have to grab the camera from the office first."

"Oh...right." Levi cleared his throat and waved the guiding arm away from him, settling into pace next to Erwin. He mentally shook himself; he needed to stop getting so flustered from every little thing that Erwin did.

They headed down the narrower staircase on the other side of the hall and turned the corner to come to a pair of open doors, that lead to a long twisting hallway full of yet more doors. Levi waited for Erwin at the receptionist’s window when he went into the labyrinthian complex that was the office to find whatever room contained the camera. He crossed his arms over his chest, impatiently tapping his foot as he waited until the the sound annoyed the receptionist lady enough to ask him to stop.

When Erwin appeared again, he had the camera in his hand and a look of rushed-stress pulling at his face. He glanced up at the large digital clock set into the wall behind the receptionist, the red LED numbers glaring their warning at him. "Shit, I'm going to be late."

"You have an excuse," Levi reasoned. "They're the ones making you film, aren't they?"

"Well, yeah. But Coach P. is cracking down on tardies now because it's been happening too often and it's cutting into practice time."

Levi just shrugged at that and followed Erwin; that was all the advice he cared to give. They left through a set of double doors that led outside and followed a stone path that ran the length of the main building, sheltered from the sky under the high overhang of the roof. Levi noticed how Erwin was in pace with him, keeping in stride with the lazy gait of Levi's short legs when he should have been leaving him in the dust with just his normal pace—especially now, since he was in a hurry. But no, even then he wasn't leaving him behind.

"We made playoffs," Erwin said, breaking the silence; he sounded proud, but not quite excited.

"That's awesome?"

"Yeah," Erwin agreed, smiling. "I don't think we're going to Championships, though."

"Such confidence," Levi commented dryly.

"Well, I mean, statistically speaking. Circumstantially."

"How do you mean?" Levi asked, feeling a sudden random rush of jitters as he talked more personally with Erwin.

He hated that he couldn't control that stupid feeling; it just cropped up whenever the hell it wanted to and all he could do was preoccupy or distract himself. He changed the song on his iPod and stuck his hand into his back pocket to produce a slim pack of gum; focusing on chewing something or fiddling with something in his hands always seemed to do the trick. He unwrapped a piece before folding it into his mouth, hesitating when he went to put it back and offering the pack to Erwin instead. He was met with a small hand gesture, a polite decline.

"The team's a little bit of a mess right now. We lost some of our good senior players, one of which was team captain. Mike's been the new captain for about a month, and he’s been struggling a bit since he’s swamped with class and college-searching on top of it."

"I thought you were the team captain?"

Erwin laughed gently; there was something hiding behind that laugh...was it shame? "No, no. I'm just helping with some of the plays when I have time to take some of the load off of Mike. I've been told I might be up for the position next year, though."

"Sounds like a lot of extra work," Levi grumbled, grimacing when his gum popped loudly in his mouth.

"It is. But I think it's rewarding if the team does well as a whole." They turned the corner at the end of the wall, the athletics building in sight. "I don't think we have the budget to send the whole team to Championships this year even if we did make it," Erwin added with a small frown. "We _did_ just get new uniforms. We should probably organize a fundraiser for next year," he pondered, thinking aloud.

He looked at Levi, a flash of disappointment crossing his features. Levi started a bit at the look, as if he was the one that had somehow caused that downward tilt of his features. "What...?"

"Since we made playoffs, we have extra practice. So I'm going to be really busy after Homecoming until Winter Break... So we probably won't be able to hang out too much."

Levi's heart sank, weighed down with a brick. Homecoming was a little more than a week away. He only had a _week_ left until their after-school study routine would be kaput? He felt his face pull in a frown and Erwin reacted sympathetically.

"Whatever. It's fine. I get it."

Erwin opened his mouth to say something else, but the heavy door opening next to them caught both of their attention as Hanji and Petra emerged from the other side.

"Hey, Smith," Hanji greeted, falling into step between them as they approached the building they were all heading for. "Small, Dark, and Broody," he teased with a nod towards Levi.

Hanji just grinned at the look of disapproval Erwin sent him until Petra chimed in, taking her place on Levi’s other side. “He has a _name_ , you know,” she chastised. “Don’t you, Levi?”

Levi looked over at her bright, kind face, his eyes meeting hers as she smiled; he took a small amount of joy in the fact that she was about the same height as he was. She always seemed to be so kindhearted and sincere, any teasing on her end only done with the best of intentions toward a friend. He gave a little huff of a laugh through his nose. “Yeah, that’s me, I guess.”

He jolted forward suddenly with the force of Hanji slapping him on the back. “Don’t sweat it, small dude!” He pointed his finger impolitely into Levi’s face. “If I’m not callin’ ya names, it means I don’t like ya,” he said matter-of-factly with a firm nod.

Levi gave Erwin—who had been watching the whole ordeal with an amused expression—a skeptical look over Hanji's shoulder. Erwin nodded affirmatively with a small exasperated roll of his eyes as he pushed open the glass door of the athletics building.

It was odd how the time of day made the gym look so different. During the earlier periods of the day it was just regular students reluctantly trickling in to change for whatever torturous PE sport they would have to endure for that day. Now it was bustling with sports kids, already in their uniforms and pumped for another day of practice.

The lobby was small and directly lead into two sets of open doors to the gym—where Levi could see the girl's volleyball team already warming up—and had a short curved hallway on either side that lead to the locker rooms. They turned to the left for the boy's room as Petra and Hanji split off from the little group they had formed and headed to the right.

"Bye guys, see you in a few," Petra called to them as she went through the right hall, Hanji in tow.

Wait.

"Did you see that?" Levi asked, now a little confused.

"See what?" Erwin asked, stopping in the middle of the hallway and looking back into the lobby.

"Is he allowed to do that?"

Erwin frowned, eyes darting around and trying to spot the offender. "Who?"

"Hanji?"

Realization hit Erwin and he couldn't help the little chuckle that escaped his mouth from behind his hand. _What the hell are you giggling at, you shit_ , Levi retorted in his head. He must have given Erwin a look that belied his lack of response, because he immediately started into an explanation.

"Hanji's not allowed in the guy's locker room unless it's a game day," Erwin told him. "Since Hanji's 'biologically female,'" he continued, using air-quotes, "and the faculty doesn't want parents complaining. Everyone on the team is chill about Hanji, so I don't really see the problem. But y'know."

The bell rang and Erwin waved for Levi to follow him into the locker room, handing him the camera.

"So Hanji's...a lesbian?" Levi asked.

"Queer," Erwin clarified. "And genderqueer. Hanji doesn't really care about pronouns, so use whichever. Most of us use 'they,' though."

"Don't pronouns like that get kind of confusing?"

Erwin shrugged. "You get used to it, like calling anybody by their pronouns." He smiled at Levi then, the expression catching him momentarily off-guard. "Hanji's already giving you stupid nicknames, though. So I doubt you need to worry about saying something wrong."

Levi shook his head with a short snort of a laugh, going through the door that Erwin was holding open for him. "You and your friends are so weird." The laugh from Erwin didn't deny his statement.

Levi's heart did a little flip. If one of Erwin's best friends was genderqueer and had a girlfriend...that meant he'd be okay with Levi being gay. Right?

They stepped into the locker room and the cloud of Axe body spray hit Levi like a bus. God, he hated that shit; it was as if every guy in high school took a dive in a vat of it every day.

He nearly swallowed his gum when he was immediately greeted by several bare asses. These guys were just standing around in their jocks in the middle of the walkway, making Erwin have to politely push past them with Levi following close behind and avoiding looking at anything besides the back of Erwin's jacket.

He tried to fight it, but he felt his cheeks warm as he glanced around at the half-naked guys that surrounded him. Like he had observed before, these weren't the lazy teens of all body-types changing into their loose PE shorts and T-shirts that he was accustomed to. This was Choice Football Ass in jocks and tight compression shorts, half of them not even wearing their shirts. He was a little surprised at how fit they all were; high school students shouldn't be allowed to look like that.

Was he in Heaven or the far recesses of Hell?

"What the hell are you guys still doing in here?" Erwin asked his half-naked teammates.

"Coach still isn't here. Says he's stuck in traffic, but bets are on that he's just hungover as usual," one of the guys answered. “Fuckin’ hypocrite. I’m late once— _one time_ —and I get Hell Conditioning for a week. But that old man is here on time, what? Once in a blue moon, and we can’t say anything about it?” A chorus of grumbled agreement answered him.

The guy that had spoken had his blond hair pulled up into a top knot that looked surprisingly good on him, and an angular face that reminded Levi of a European model he had seen in a menswear ad once. With a short glance downward, Levi found that both of his nipples were pierced, the balls of the short barbells resting snugly on either side of the perked buds. He didn't tear his eyes away until Erwin stopped and Levi ran right into the back of him, too busy staring at some guy's nipples to be paying attention to his surroundings.

Hell. He was definitely in Hell.

"Sorry," he grunted quietly, sitting himself down on the bench next to Erwin's locker and looking at the floor. All of these nice torsos, nice arms, nice asses—why did Erwin have to do this to him? He did his best to school his expression, his eyebrows and the corners of his mouth drawing into hard lines; coming off as grumpy would be better than coming off as a staring gay pervert in Ass Hell, in his opinion.

It was loud in the locker room, all the guys talking at once and shuffling around each other and into their practice clothes, slamming and opening locker doors. Levi glanced over at one of the loudest boys—thankfully one with all his clothes on—as he blathered on about how some cheerleader totally wanted him after his amazing run at their last game.

"You're full of shit, Bossard. The only time she was looking at you was when you fell on your fucking face!" An eruption of laughter came from the group of guys, making the Bossard guy flush angrily and cross his arms over his chest. His shoulder pads pushed up to his ears and made him look like a turtle retreating into its shell.

" _You guys_ are full of shit," he retorted lamely. "You're all just _jealous_."

Levi shook his head at the scene; straight boys were so fucking stupid. He looked up at Erwin, who hadn't joined in yet with the conversation, and swallowed hard.

Well. There went his gum.

While he had been staring at the floor and glancing around at the boys talking, he hadn't noticed that Erwin was already in a state of undress—his jacket and T-shirt lying discarded in a puddle of fabric an inch from Levi's hand on the bench.

Levi couldn't stop his eyes from trailing up the side of Erwin's body. The flat muscles of his front dipped in a slight V down the front of his pants, his skin pale against the dark band of his briefs that peeked over the top of his unbuttoned jeans. Levi's eyes followed the soft dips of his abs, up over the curve of his pecs to his sharp collarbone. His nipples were darker than Levi thought they would be—not that he thought about that often—and they were perked with goosebumps from the chill of the locker room air.

His eyes trailed down his thick biceps, the muscles flexing as he shifted around the contents of his locker to grab his practice clothes. His hands were so big—no doubt useful tools for football—and Levi wondered for a moment how big they'd look if he put his own palm against Erwin's to compare; he could probably curl his fingertips over Levi's with little effort.

Erwin must have felt Levi staring again, because he looked down at him. Instead of snapping at Levi to keep his gay eyes off him, he only smiled apologetically. "I'll try to hurry up, sorry," he said. Levi just nodded dumbly.

This wasn't fair. This was _so_ not fair.

Levi looked reluctantly away from Erwin's body, glancing around at the other guys and trying not to stare at Man-Bun's pierced nipples for too long. He found Bossard's gaze on him before long and he glared back defensively—he wasn't staring at anyone, he wasn't being weird. His gaze was fixed and icy until the guy looked away with a laugh that he tried to pass off as anything but nervous.

"Who's your friend, Smith?" he asked suddenly, making several of the guys turn to look at the both of them. Levi kept his face neutral and calm; nothing weird, nothing weird here.

Erwin turned toward them and pulled a shirt over his head, his muscles stretching with the movement.

Oh, fuck. His _back_. Erwin had those fucking shoulder muscles that made Levi weak in the knees; he almost protested when his shirt settled to hide those muscles from view, but it stopped right in the middle of his torso to show off the dimples that kissed the base of his spine.

 _A half-shirt are you fucking kidding me_ , Levi nearly screamed in his head. This was absolutely not fair. Two-hundred-and-ten per-fucking-cent not fair.

Erwin didn't seem to be sharing Levi's sentiments, answering them like he had no clue about the internal gay aneurysm that Levi was suffering because of him. "This is Levi, from my 5th. He's so generously agreed to film practice for us today."

“Make sure you get good shots of me,” one of the guys piped up with a sleazy smile. Levi felt his lip twitch at that, but shot them all a half-assed smile that probably came off as an “I’d rather be anywhere but here” expression. He fidgeted where he sat until they all turned back to their next conversation about which cheerleader had the best tits.

Could he leave yet?

He met a sneer that was attached to the last person he wanted to see at that current point in time. Nile was at the end of the line of lockers, yanking his clothes out of his small drawer and shoving his sweaty PE shirt into it. He looked the most bitter that Levi had ever seen him; whoever caused him to look like that deserved a fucking medal. He turned his gaze away from him, though he could still feel the uncomfortable sensation of Nile’s eyes still fixed on him.

“Honestly, you could probably just sit really high up in the bleachers,” Erwin said to him as he yanked his shoulder pads out of the tight space of his tall locker, “and set the camera on the bench and just leave it there recording.”

Levi stared boldly at Erwin’s belly button that was at his eye level, forcing his eyes not to follow the lines of his hips that led down past the waistband of his underwear.

“If that’s the case, then what do you need me for? Just trying to show off?” he asked with a haughty flash of his eyes.

Erwin laughed, looking down at Levi with an expression that was more playful than it was cocky. “Guess you caught me,” he said with a little smile and a shrug, his eyebrows quirking up with the gesture. He didn’t elaborate any more than that as he continued to change clothes, and Levi wasn’t entirely sure if he was joking or not.

He glanced around Erwin’s body to see Nile still curling his lip in their direction. What the fuck was he looking at? Was he mad because Erwin was hanging out with someone that he (lamely) tried to bully?

Erwin drew Levi’s eyes back to him when shifted beside him, and suddenly he wasn’t wearing pants anymore. Erwin was naked from the waist down, turning to sit on the bench and pull on his pair of black compression shorts; Levi tore his eyes away so fast he nearly gave himself whiplash.

He stared at his shoes, his face probably a nice shade of purple as he attempted to count every thread of the laces. _Three. Eight. Nine. Twelve. No, was that the same thread?_ He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand, more harsh than relaxing, and started his count over again.

He’d seen Erwin’s bare ass and almost the rest of him, in a public place no less. If he got an awkward boner from this whole disaster he’d pitch himself off the next bridge he came across.

Erwin stood up, pulling his knees up one at a time and adjusting himself in his shorts. _Twenty-two. Twenty-four. Twenty-seven. Thirty-one._

He quickly pulled on a pair of shorts, similar to the basketball-type PE shorts that the rest of the students wore, and a pair of socks that reached mid-calf. Levi always hated those kinds of socks—they were so ugly; Levi himself usually wore the kind of ankle socks that didn’t show out of the top of his shoes, and the occasional pair of knee-highs if he had on a pair of boots. When Erwin tightly tied up the laces on his cleats, however, the socks didn’t look entirely as hideous as they did by themselves.

 _Forty-six. Forty-nine. Fifty-two. Fifty_ —

“Are you okay?” Levi looked at Erwin, bent over the bench while he tried to stuff his shoulder pads into his practice jersey. Though he was fit, when he was bent over like that his stomach folded in little rolls that Levi couldn’t help but think were kind of cute.

“I’m fine,” Levi answered. “Why wouldn’t I be fine?” Half of the guys cleared out with the last bell and Levi spared a glance back at Nile, who was now fully dressed and sending a contemptuous smirk in Levi’s direction.

He hadn’t seen him staring at Erwin, he hadn’t seen him flush and the look on his face when he had seen Erwin’s ass, he hadn’t seen him looking around at the other half-naked guys either. Nile waved his finger between Levi and Erwin and raising an eyebrow questioningly, the gesture almost innocent until his hand made a crude jacking off motion and that awful smirk was plastered back on his face. He was flanked on either side by two of his huge friends who snickered at Nile’s insult and sent Levi similar disgusted sneers.

He had seen. He had _fucking_ seen.

Levi rubbed his neck harder, painful from the heat of the friction, and didn’t look over at Nile again. Erwin squeezed into his shoulder pads, adjusting them down in short tugs and strapping himself in.

“You rub your neck like that when you’re uncomfortable,” Erwin offered by way of explanation.

“I’m fine. I told you, I'm fucking fine,” Levi snapped, pulling his hand away from his neck self-consciously and punching it into his lap.

“Hey, I was just—”

“Heard you made playoffs,” Nile interrupted loudly, coming to stand in the middle of the few remaining team members that were still idling around their lockers. “Got that big party happening at your place, Smith?”

“Yes, we made playoffs,” Erwin answered, his tone short; he sounded exasperated, maybe even a little defeated. Levi had never heard Erwin sound like that before. Did he sound like that because he had been terse with him, or was it because of Nile?

“And if you’re going to make a scene like last time," Erwin continued, "you’re not invited. I’m sorry.” Erwin tugged his jersey down over his torso, the fabric clinging to the hem of his shorts.

Nile bristled. “What the fuck, man? Come on! I got this team on track first, I’m half the reason you guys got to playoffs!”

“You’re also half the reason we almost didn’t make it to playoffs, considering you got yourself kicked off the team,” Man-Bun interjected.

“I didn’t ask for your opinion, _Eld_. Butt out.”

Levi didn't stop the derisive scoff that left him, making Nile pull a sour face at him. Nile obviously didn't need any help in making himself look like a complete ass in front of a bunch of people.

"What the hell are you laughing at, runt? It's not like you'd ever get invited to anything," he spat.

Levi frowned at him and was a little surprised to see Erwin do the same, his jaw set and his mouth a hard line.

"Levi's invited to the party," came a voice from behind them, making them all turn to see who had spoken. It was Mike, already in his uniform, cleats clacking loudly against the concrete floor as he walked up to Erwin's locker. He looked impossibly more huge with his shoulder pads, and for a moment Levi felt incredibly small and feeble. "Forgot I left my gloves in your locker," he said quietly to Erwin, who handed him the pair.

"Would you like to go?" Mike asked Levi, pulling his gloves on and strapping the velcro snugly.

Levi looked directly at Nile when he replied, "Yeah. I'll be there."

Nile looked so livid he was practically blue in the face. If he got any more angry his head might actually explode (as if Levi would be that lucky).

"I'll tell you what," Erwin said to Nile, shutting his locker door and slapping the lock back on it. "I'll give you another chance."

 _Goddammit, Erwin,_ Levi lamented, _don't show him pity._

“But I swear to God, if you start shit again I will not hesitate to throw you out.”

“Sure, _Dad_ ,” Nile threw out bitterly, turning on his heel and storming straight out of the locker room with his two goons in tow.

The locker room was left in an awkward silence until Eld spoke again, grabbing his helmet and walking towards the other exit with the rest of the guys. “ _Wow_ ," he said. "What a little bitch.”

Levi couldn’t agree more.

When he looked back at Erwin, his jaw was still set and he had his eyes closed, his thumb and forefinger pinching the bridge of his nose. The sigh that came from him was slow and measured, the tendons in his hand flexing against his skin.

“What’s his damage?” Levi asked, trying not to sound too interested.

“Later,” Mike dismissed. “We need to get on the field.” He handed Erwin his pair of gloves from the bench and clapped him on the shoulder. Erwin grabbed his helmet by the face guard and beckoned for Levi to follow him and Mike out the door to the sports fields.

“Put that rage into motion,” Mike advised, the both of them strapping themselves into their helmets. When Erwin had his chin strap tightened, Mike knocked his helmet lightly against his. “That’s why football was invented, wasn't it?”

 

* * *

 

Levi didn’t know much about how football worked, and he didn’t really figure out much by watching, either; maybe sometime he’d ask Erwin to explain it to him in greater detail. The only thing he knew (or thought that he knew) was that Erwin was the quarterback. He was the one who received the ball from the guy in front of him and passed, threw, or ran with the ball. He thought that the quarterback was the one that was supposed to be the captain and run the plays or whatever, but he and Mike seemed to work together on that end.

He didn’t know which position Mike played, but he was always near Erwin when they started a play and he seemed to do a lot of blocking. Hanji was just...wild. Erwin would hand off the ball to them for a play and they’d be off like a bullet down the field; he could practically hear their cackle as they dodged and avoided the other side’s attempts to tackle.

The team wasn’t as big as he thought it was, but he supposed that was why they had been struggling after however many players had been kicked out aside from Nile. They were playing against another team that wasn’t from their high school; they looked larger and older—probably students from the community college on the edge of town.

He didn’t pay too much attention to the actual game being played; he had long since abandoned his role as tripod and set the camera up on a stack of his books on the high bleacher seat, as Erwin had suggested.

It was nice sitting outside, the fresh air a pleasant change after he’d had his internal meltdown in the stuffy, Axe-laced air of the locker room. He wouldn’t be surprised if he had damaged the blood vessels in his face from flushing so hard at all the naked ass he had been subjected to. The breeze had cooled his blush, but though it was chilly, it wasn’t raining for once. Even so, he had an umbrella of clear plastic jutting out of his bag, just in case.

That stupid umbrella. Erwin had let him “borrow it indefinitely” the last time he had walked to Erwin’s house in the pouring rain. No matter how much Levi protested, Erwin still somehow got him to take it in the end. And although he still groused about it, he was grateful for it—no more rain seeping into his backpack to curl the edges of his sketchbooks.

Up high in the bleachers, he could clearly see the entire field, so he took his opportunity to start a fresh sketchbook to get some drawing practice in. He needed to work on action and motion; he drew too many stationary expressions and poses.

He sketched quickly, his lines moving as fast as the players on the field. He drew a page of Mike—huge and powerful. Somehow his movements still seemed fluid and calm; it would be a challenge to get that to show on paper.

Bossard was easy to spot. He was skilled but did seem to be a little clumsy, like his cleats weren’t tied on tightly enough. He found Eld in the mass of players too. He was fast as well, and was stronger than he had seemed; he successfully blocked players that were clearly larger than he was with little to no effort.

His favorite to draw, though, was Hanji. They were fast and almost spastic in their movements—flailing hands and long legs with quick feet that seemed to not even touch the ground. They always ended up in the best poses.

And then there was Erwin. He found himself drawing Erwin the most, and he couldn’t say that surprised him. He commanded the field, calculating and swift. If Levi wasn’t one-sidedly pining for Erwin, he’d still have his full attention. He stood out. He would be an amazing team captain next year, Levi was sure of it.

Levi looked over his drawings, flipping through the pages. He noticed that his drawings of Erwin looked different. Softer. With the others his hand was light and fast, but they were messy and the lines overlapped until the outlines of their bodies were dark and evident. Erwin was drawn with a more careful, delicate touch. He didn’t want to spoil any detail with a mistake.

He only wished he wasn’t so far up in the bleachers. He wanted to draw his face with those same light strokes of graphite on paper. He wanted those cheekbones, those eyebrows, that nose, those lips, those eyes. He wanted that smile.

If he drew it in perfect detail, he would always have it. It would never go away, like so many other things had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are appreciated c:


	6. It's Gonna Be Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only two weeks since the last update! Wow that must be some kind of a record for me ^^;
> 
> I just wanted to say that I appreciate all the lovely comments you guys have left me. I tend to lose confidence in my writing, especially since I'm so new and technically this is my first fic, not to mention my first with so many chapters. But reading all your comments and such really gives me that extra boost to get the next one out and makes me love my writing just a little bit more, so thank you all so much! (*´˘`*)♡
> 
> Anywho, enjoy this silly chapter~

Levi stared at the guy pressed close to his locker, permanent black marker held securely in his hand as he drew what looked like the fourth detailed dick onto the painted metal of the door. No one else passing by in the hallway seemed to notice, either from tunnel vision as they hustled to lunch, or because they were too engrossed in their conversations with their friends. Or maybe they just didn't care. But Levi noticed—how couldn't he?

He didn't know the guy's name, but he knew it was one of Nile's shit friends—tall and huge, looking like if he got too close to him he would undoubtedly smell like he hadn't showered or brushed his teeth in a month or two. He had seen them together enough to know he that wasn't mistaken.

Levi was already crabby and antsy that day, so he clearly wasn't in the fucking mood to deal with more bullshit like this. The guy finished his current dick drawing with a few clearly-needed details: a thick vein down the side of it, some huge hairy balls and an unnecessary amount of come flying out of the tip of it. Honestly, how old was this fucking idiot?

His drawing finished, the guy started to write something instead. Nice, big, black letters stood out clearly from the light beige of the line of lockers.

F-A-C—

Before he could finish the tail of the G, Levi introduced his elbow to the guys ribs and knocked him out of the way. The guy actually looked at _him_ with an offended expression. Levi hunched over the lock he had recently gotten for his locker and spun the dial with movements so quick he had unlocked it in only a few seconds.

"What the hell? You didn't let me finish," the guy complained loudly, reaching over Levi with his pen and aiming for the surface of the locker again. The pen brushed against the sleeve of Levi's hoodie and he was glad for a moment that both the fabric and the pen were black; if he had a permanent mark visible on his clothes, there was no way in hell this guy wouldn't have at least three broken bones. Levi shoved the arm away, his patience waning fast.

"Get out of my fucking way," he growled, shoving him out of his personal space again with a firm elbow to the sternum. He was honestly about to hit this guy, but a few faculty members passing by had him violently wrenching open his locker door instead, the back of it slamming hard into the door of the locker next to it and leaving the guy no room to finish his graffiti.

Levi was so angry he could feel a vein throb at his temple. Why would this school be any different from the others he had been to? In a smaller town where everyone knew nearly everybody, he should have figured that this school would be worse than the city. But he just had to have that stupidly pointless little hope that _somehow_ things would be instantly better when he moved there, and _somehow_ there wouldn't be an asshole harassing him at every chance they got.

There was no fucking _somehow_. There was just the unavoidable truth that wherever he went, he would be miserable.

A hand touching his shoulder made a feral animosity flare within him. " _WHAT?!_ " he yelled, whipping around and beating the arm off of him in one sharp motion; the feeling of the bones in their forearms smacking together hard enough to bruise made him curl both his hands into fists against the uncomfortable flash of pain.

He froze when he saw the split second of Erwin's smile before it warped into an expression of shock, then softened into one of concern. The fire in Levi's eyes extinguished, the angry heat in his face being replaced by embarrassment and irritation at himself.

He felt suddenly tired when he met Erwin's eyes the a brief moment before he looked at the rest of his face, watching the concern pull at his eyebrows and the corners of his mouth. Erwin's eyes softened further as Levi's continued to flick over his face, not stopping on one particular feature for more than a second. He hated it when people looked at him like that, like he was some stupid child that should be pitied.

"What?" he asked again—much more calm that time, though he couldn't help the lethargy that dragged the word from his lips. He could see Erwin about to ask if he was okay for the millionth time since he had met him, and answered him shortly before the question came. "I'm fine, whatever. Now what do you want?"

He looked away from Erwin and saw the guy from before with Nile at the end of the hall, watching them. Were these fucking assholes following him around now? With more sneering looks and crude hand gestures, Levi felt his face warm with anger again and suddenly became conscious of how close Erwin was standing to him.

"Want to go into town for lunch?" Erwin tried lightly, watching Levi as he rubbed the spot below his wrist where there was surely a bruise forming from when their arms had connected. He reached out to Levi's sore arm, but Levi pulled away as if the touch were to surely burn him.

"Let's get the fuck out of here."

Levi pulled the last book he needed from his locker and stuffed it into his bag, pulling the zipper so harshly he was afraid for a moment that he might just break the damn thing off. He gestured for Erwin to lead the way, and only when he had started off away from him did Levi close his locker door.

He followed after Erwin, knowing full well that when he returned to the line of lockers tomorrow morning, his would stand out—a fully realized masterpiece.

 

* * *

 

Levi had always suspected that Erwin had his own car; he'd've been surprised if he didn't, if his parents had enough money to have that gigantic house on Maria. He was expecting some fancy, shiny, new sports car, but it turned out that he had a dark blue SUV that looked like it had seen quite a few family trips. It was a big car, but not overcompensating like some of the other trucks in the student lot. Even so, Levi still needed the step on the outside to get into the vehicle so he wouldn't have to awkwardly clamber up into it. 

The car looked almost like new on the inside, but when Levi sat himself down and settled back into the cushions of the seat he was relieved that it didn't have any trace of that nauseating new car-leather smell. He sat quietly, fidgeting with the hem of his hoodie as Erwin stepped up easily into the driver's side and reached over the center console to drop his backpack on the floor behind himself.

Levi hadn't sat in a car since he had moved into town; it was so odd how such a simple and common occurance like sitting in a car could feel so unfamiliar and foreign to him. It almost felt like the one time he had ridden the bus and realized halfway through the trip that he happened to be on the wrong line.

Erwin fished his keys out of the pocket of his letterman jacket. He looked so damn good in that jacket. Truthfully, it looked good on everyone. It looked good on Mike, it looked good on Eld, it looked good on Hanji, and it even looked good on Petra; she tended to wear Hanji's letterman more than her own cheerleading jacket, but Hanji didn't seem to mind all that much. Levi wondered if he would look good in one too—not that he was willing to be on any sports teams to actually get one of his own.

The car started up with the turn of Erwin's key and a rumble from the engine.

— _ith broken bones! I fear no evil! Evil fucking fears me! Your t_ —

" _Jesus fucking Christ_ ," Levi complained after he had jumped in his seat, the both of them caught off guard by the music that suddenly blasted out into the silence of the car. Erwin grimaced and cranked the volume down all the way, then grabbed his iPod out of the small compartment under the radio.

"Shit, sorry," he apologized, unlocking the touch screen and hitting pause. He frowned a little at himself. "I left this stupid thing on all day."

"Was that... _Winds of Plague_?" Levi asked, a little late in his reaction.

"Yes?" Erwin glanced at the screen again. "Yes."

"I didn't think you'd like that kind of music," Levi said, holding his hand out to Erwin and receiving the iPod to take a quick browse.

"I don't listen to it too much," Erwin admitted. "It's more like a couple random songs from a bunch of different genres and bands. My music taste is more of a...sampler platter, if you will," he explained with a laugh and hand gesture that looked like he was presenting said invisible platter to Levi.

"I can see that," Levi said as he skimmed through the list of bands on his iPod. _Alan Parsons Project. All American Rejects. Apocalyptica. Arctic Monkeys. Aphex Twin. August Burns Red. Bad Religion. The Beatles. Breaking Benjamin...Britney Spears._ Levi tapped on the artist, and raised an eyebrow when he saw that there were twenty-three songs there.

"You like Britney Spears?" he asked with a little snort.

"Hey, I listened to pop a lot when I was a kid and I'm addicted now," Erwin defended. "Don't judge me."

Levi rolled his eyes and shook his head with another little snort into his hoodie. "I can see you judging me," Erwin grumbled. "Don't act like you don't like pop too. I know you like Lady Gaga," he added with a playful smirk, shifting the car into reverse. "Seatbelt," he commanded with a wave in Levi's direction.

"How the hell do you know that?" Levi asked with a flush as he fumbled for his seatbelt, clicking the buckle into place.

"You're going to hate me," Erwin said, making Levi give him an exasperatedly bewildered look. How could Levi hate him for something like that? "We could...kinda hear you singing on the football video," he said with an awkward smile.

Levi's face fell and he was suddenly overcome with the desire to punch himself in the goddamn face. "Son of a fucking bitch." He smacked his forehead into his palm and Erwin laughed a little louder than he had probably intended to, silencing the outburst with a smile behind his hand.

"You're a pretty good singer, though. So at least that makes it a little less embarrassing," he assured, putting his hand behind Levi's headrest and turning to see behind himself as he started to back out of the space. Levi scowled at himself. Even if he was decent at singing along with his stupid music, it was still equally as embarrassing. He set the iPod on shuffle and stuck it back in the little hold that Erwin had taken it from.

The seatbelt cut into Levi's chest when he was jolted forward from Erwin slamming on the brakes when some small red car blew past them. Honestly, high school student parking lots were the most dangerous places with all the stupid teenagers that had only recently gotten their licenses, already eager to total their new cars.

Erwin muttered a curse under his breath and backed the rest of the way out of the spot smoothly, turning the music back up as they left the small parking lot; he hummed along with whatever song was playing, Levi didn't know what it was. He turned his body toward his window, crossing one leg over the other and folding his arms over his chest as he watched the scenery go by outside.

The street and sidewalk went by in blurring colors like the reel of a film—the trees a damp mossy-green, the black asphalt slick like oil. His vision focused on his reflection in the window rather than the landscape past it and he noticed with silent disdain that he had awful dark circles under his eyes, a deep enough purple to make his pale skin look almost sickly. He looked so fucking ugly, why did he even let himself leave the house?

He hadn't been eating or sleeping very well for the past few nights, only nibbling on snacks here and there, and staying up until 5am watching TV until he finally forced himself to sleep for the two hours before he'd have to get up to get ready for school.

The aching fatigue he felt made him think he was getting sick, but he hadn't gotten a cough or a fever yet so he just stayed in the miserable limbo between being healthy and ill. He just felt awful.

He was still upset that he wouldn't be hanging out with Erwin as much in the weeks to come. It was already Tuesday and the Homecoming game was on Friday, the dance and Erwin's party on Saturday. He had continued going over to Erwin's after his football practice as usual, though for the past few days he'd sat and drawn them, steadily filling his sketchbook with drawings of each player. He'd sat closer than the day he had filmed, thankful he could see at least some facial expressions behind the guards of their helmets. He always left before Erwin could get back out of the locker room, off to his home for a pit stop before heading over to Erwin's and a little embarrassed that he was spending more and more time subtly watching him from his spot up in the bleachers.

Things seemed to change when he went over to Erwin's the last couple times. He still had a good time when he was there—studying, chatting, snacking—but when he left, he felt somehow much, much worse. Levi felt like it was because he was already anticipating the disappointment when he wouldn't be coming over anymore.

He locked his eyes onto a stop sign on an adjacent street corner, refocusing them onto something that wasn't himself. Already he felt like skipping class and going home, even though he had promised his nanna that he wouldn't skip unless he was sick. How he felt could be classified as sick, in his opinion. He didn't feel like doing anything besides curling up on his couch and spending another night mindlessly staring at his television screen like a fucking sad sack.

His eyes focused on his reflection again against his will. He pressed his forehead to the cold glass so he wouldn't be able to look at himself so easily, his eyes following the reflection until they settled on Erwin instead.

Erwin seemed to be in a good mood, watching the road as he sang along with his music—a little off-key, but with an endearing sort of enthusiasm—and tapped his thumbs against the steering wheel with the beat. He met Erwin's eyes in the window when he looked over at him. Erwin smiled a small, kind smile and reached a hand over to him.

"What's got you so gloomy today?" he asked with a gently benevolent pat to Levi's knee, the gesture platonic and almost fatherly.

Levi shrugged, shifting in his seat so he faced forward again, his temple still resting against the window. "People are annoying me and I don't feel good."

"It's not Nile, is it?" Erwin asked with a frown.

"No," Levi lied, staring out the windshield as they came to a stop sign; they were close to town already; he could tell by how the streets had become busier with afternoon shoppers.

"Do you still want to get food if you're not feeling well?"

"Yeah. Maybe I'll feel better if I eat something." He neglected to mention to Erwin how little he had eaten in the past couple days. He was thankful for his hoodie that he constantly wore—without it, it would be more apparent how thin he had become in recent months. Even though he went for a run now and then, he hadn't been gaining muscle to make up for his skinny-ness, and that just made him all the more self-conscious about himself.

"I'm not letting you go home until you cheer up at least a little."

Levi looked over at him, surprised. Why did he care that much? "And what if I don't? Are you just going to keep me prisoner?"

"Of course," Erwin replied, playfully serious. "I'll lock you in the Fun Dungeon."

Levi rolled his eyes at the _Wreck-It Ralph_ reference. "Fuckin' try me," he lazily sassed back.

The unmistakably familiar sound of early-2000's pop synthesizers filled the air of the car as Erwin turned up the volume. Levi watched with intrigued terror as Erwin ran his fingers through his hair and settled it in a very 90's boy band middle part.

 _“Oh, yeah,”_ sang Justin Timberlake.

 _Oh God, no_ , groaned Levi in his head.

"You might've been hurt, _babe_ ," Erwin sang, pointing at Levi on the last word and making him flush. "That ain't no lie. You've seen them all come and go, _oooh_."

He sang with little flourishes of his hand and that distinctively odd inflection typical of pop music from years ago as Levi sank slowly into his hoodie. "I remember you told _me_ , that it made you believe in no man, no cry. Maybe that's why, every little thing I do, never seems enough for you. You don't want to lose it again—"

Levi covered his face with both of his hands—hopefully coming off as more exasperated than shy—thoroughly embarrassed for Erwin's sake as he continued to sing wholeheartedly to the chorus of the stupid song.

"But I'm not like them! Baby, when you finally, get to love somebody. Guess what." Levi met Erwin's eyes through his fingers when he felt Erwin nudge his shoulder and saw him point at himself with a jab of his thumb. "It's gonna be _me!_ "

His flush deepened behind his hands when he thought about the lyrics of the song and how Erwin was singing them at him; they kind of unintentionally fit Levi's hopeless situation, though he knew he was just reading way too far into it.

"Come on, Levi, you know this song. You _have_ to know this song," Erwin laughed. "Sing along so I'm not the only loser here."

"No. You can be a loser by yourself," Levi muttered, dropping his hands from his face and crossing them over his chest again. He tried not to pay Erwin any attention as he sang the next verse of the song. They pulled into the full parking lot of the tiny restaurant, catching a parking spot just as someone was leaving. Erwin sang the next repetition of the chorus, enthusiastic as ever as he put the car into park.

Levi unbuckled his seatbelt and made to open the door but the lock disappeared from his fingers with a click. He looked back at Erwin, who had a not-quite-innocent smile on his face. He tried to pull up on the lock again, but Erwin was faster at pressing the lock button than Levi was at opening the door. He glared at Erwin, who just looked back at him with his best meaningful boy band eyes.

"There comes a day, when I'll be the one. You'll see..." He looked at Levi expectantly as he sang the bridge, letting him know that he wouldn't be set free until he contributed to this ridiculous spectacle in some way or another.

"It's gonna-gonna-gonna-gonna-gonna—!" he nudged Levi's shoulder hard enough to get him to unfold his arms with an exasperated sigh.

" _It's gonna be me!_ " Levi shouted more than sang, earning a ridiculously pleased chortle from Erwin that would've made Hanji proud. Pressing a hand to his face, embarrassed again, he silently begged Erwin to set him free with another hot glare. He unlocked the door for Levi, who nearly fell out of the SUV when he hurriedly stepped out, having forgotten how tall the car was.

Erwin was still giggling a bit when he came around the other side of the car to meet a flustered Levi. "You're so fucking _embarrassing_ ," Levi criticized with harsh words, yet a light tone.

He just shrugged and laughed again. " _Yeaahhh_ ," he agreed.

A warm hand on the middle of Levi's back guided him around the car to the front of the restaurant, Levi's heart beating just a little faster at the contact. He pressed back ever so slightly, trying to feel more of the warm pressure of that hand now that they were alone, but it left him disappointed when it slid away again.

Why did he want to feel those hands on him so badly? It wasn't anything sexual or perverted (although he wouldn't really mind that either), he just wanted those small touches that Erwin seemed to sparingly provide—and then some. He wanted his arm around his shoulders. He wanted his fingers laced with his own. He wanted him to brush his hair out of his face and press a soft kiss to his forehead. He wanted all this sappy bullshit he knew he'd never get.

They entered through the single door at the front of the restaurant, the tingle of the bell above their heads lost in the din that seemed to explode out of the small building. Levi immediately tensed. The place was _packed._ It seemed as if half the town had stuffed themselves into this one fucking building like sardines in a tin, Levi noted with no small amount of dissatisfaction. It would be a wonder if they even got to the front register to order before they would have to be back in art class.

Another pair of people came in through the door and pushed past Levi, who flinched away when they touched him. The air of the crowded restaurant was already starting to suffocate him, every noise and movement agitating him like a cornered animal.

"Do you know what you want?" Erwin asked, leaning down into Levi and raising his voice a bit so he could be heard. Levi bristled when someone else close to him laughed suddenly and loudly, his face drawing down into a grimace. "Is there anything you don't like on a burger?" Erwin asked again, saving them both time by asking for the simplest information.

"Mustard," came his short reply. He counted every second of his measured breaths to distract himself from his overwhelming need to leave Erwin and get the hell out of there.

"Do you like milkshakes?"

Levi nodded, pressing closer to Erwin when a family of four took up more space than they needed to at his side, their gross little kid wiping his running nose on his sleeve and snorting the rest back into his nose. Levi wanted to gag.

"Any flavor?"

"Whatever," Levi bit out. His breathing exercises weren't doing a goddamn thing. They weren't even in line yet and the wait was already painful, stuck in a mob of people chatting and waiting for their own food. He hadn't seen any tables out front and he was absolutely sure he wouldn't survive having to eat in this chaos—if they even got a seat to free up somewhere. This place was ten times worse than the school cafeteria and Levi was already starting to regret letting Erwin take him there; this was one of Erwin's favorite places and Levi felt like an asshole for clearly looking like he already hated the place.

"Here, come with me," Erwin said, catching Levi completely off guard when he reached down and grabbed his hand. He stared dumbly at their hands, held together like he had secretly hoped for, except without any of the bullshit fluff he had imagined. Levi's hand was more like a clammy dead fish held limply in Erwin's grasp than warm palms and intertwined fingers that fit together perfectly that he seemed to think they would be.

Erwin smiled at him and held his hand tighter, pulling him into the throng of people. He paved their way through the crowd, using his large football player-build to part the sea of bodies and pull Levi along behind him. They pushed through a particularly tight-knit bunch near the front and Levi grabbed onto Erwin's hand more firmly to make sure he wouldn't be sucked away and get lost in the tide; he earned a reassuring squeeze back that made his heartbeat stutter.

Finally they reached the front counter, dipping around to the side to the little swinging half-door that bore an "Employees Only" sign. Erwin leaned over it, cupping a hand around his mouth when he shouted, "Hitch! _Hitch!_ "

He squeezed Levi's hand again when he leaned too far over the door, tottering off-balance before righting himself again. Levi pulled his hand from Erwin's, suddenly feeling self-conscious about the public display of affection—platonic though it was—when a young girl whipped around from the drink she had been preparing and looked over at them.

She smiled lazily at them, her catty eyes gleaming with a sort of playfulness that only accompanied a person who loved to tease. Levi wondered if she knew Hanji.

Hitch looked like she was about middle-school age, maybe a freshman in high school, though he didn't remember seeing her around in the halls or the cafeteria at lunch. Her wavy sandy-brown hair bounced as she trotted over to them, eyeing Erwin brazenly from head to foot.

"Well ain't you a sight for sore eyes?" Her speech was lazier than her smile, and if Levi didn't know any better he would have thought that she might have been a little stoned. "The Nick Carter look isn't doing you any good," she added, waving at Erwin's hair when he gave her a briefly confused look. He flushed a little, the tops of his cheeks blooming pink as he combed his fingers through his hair until it laid forward, the tips swaying slightly to one side. Levi took pleasure in Erwin being the embarrassed one for once—the payback was sweet like justice.

"Can I get the usual table? And two number-fours and a chocolate shake?" he asked with an innocent smile that Levi could tell held a little bit of a plea behind it.

Hitch's smile melted into a pout. "Why do you gotta make me work harder, huh? I get paid by the hour and I can only work like three hours a day 'cause I ain't fourteen yet. How you gonna pay me an extra hour?"

"I'll give you an extra tip, how about that?"

She shifted her weight to one leg and gave an exaggerated sigh. "How 'bout a little kiss?" she asked with a Cheshire grin and a bat of her long eyelashes.

"Now, now," Erwin replied with a soft laugh. "You already know the answer to that," he gently reprimanded, as one would a younger sibling. She flicked her gaze to Levi, sizing him up and really looking at him as if she had just realized he had been standing there next to Erwin the entire time.

"What about you, cutie?"

Levi bristled and blinked incredulously at her, taken aback by this girl who had entirely too much confidence for a thirteen-year-old. Why did it have to be a younger _girl_ that would be the to first call him cute to his face? He wanted to blurt out "I'm gay" at her, but he didn't, shaking his head stiffly instead.

"Phoo," she scoffed at them. "Why do I even try?" She held open the small door for them and waved them in. "Alright, get a move on."

"Thank yooouu," Erwin sang at her as she led them through the back, past the kitchen and out a door at the very rear of the building. They were greeted by fresh air and a group of three empty picnic tables that sat in a row on the back patio of the restaurant.

"I'll get your order in and make sure it doesn't take too long," she drawled at Erwin, still making eyes at him. He bent down and to Levi's surprise, he pressed a chaste little kiss to her forehead. She seemed to be equally as surprised, flushing deeply and smacking Erwin's chest with a nervous little giggle before she stumbled back toward the door. Levi didn't miss the subtle little grope she gave to Erwin's pec; he narrowed his eyes at her, not jealous in the slightest (at least, that's what he told himself).

"Don't tell Mike I did that," Erwin warned her.

She giggled at him again, missing the door handle the first time she reached for it. "Sure I won't," she replied, not entirely sincere.

When the door shut behind her, the silence was almost deafening. Levi finally took a nice, calm lungful of air, eternally grateful that they didn't have to stay in that stuffy mob of people any longer. The only person that was out there besides the two of them was an older woman sitting on a bench on the other side of a wooden fence, feeding birds from a small paper bag at her side. The inkling of recognition confused Levi until he realized it was that old tomato lady from the grocery store that one time; he kind of wanted to tell her that that avocado salad was his favorite snack now, when he actually got himself to make food.

"Is Hitch your girlfriend?" Levi teased, smirking a little at the spluttering laugh Erwin returned the question with.

" _Hell_ no," he laughed, taking a seat at the far left bench and motioning at Levi for him to sit across from him. "She's in eighth grade and flirts with _everyone_ on the football team. _And_ the basketball team. _And_ the baseball team. _And_ the guys on cheer." Levi snorted at that. Hitch was just as thirsty as he was, but she actually had the nerve to flirt openly with them.

Lucky bitch.

"If she's in middle school how does she know all the high school sports teams?"

"She's best friends with Mike's little sister. Hitch's got a crush on him, too. She likes the tall ones." He smirked at Levi. "Oh, and I guess you too."

Levi kicked Erwin in the shin, making it look like an accident as he swung his leg over the bench to sit down, though they both knew it wasn't an accident at all. "Was that a short joke?"

Erwin shrugged at him. "Maybe a small one. A tiny, short joke."

"Do you want me to kick you again?"

"No, sorry," Erwin apologized, still with that small smile gracing his lips. How did he always manage to stay in such a good mood? "How tall are you, anyways?"

Levi crossed his arms in front of himself on the surface the table, leaning forward to rest his chin on his hands. "I don't know, like 5'2"?" That was a lie; Levi knew he was just barely able to classify himself as 5'1".

Erwin chuckled. " _Small_. I'm like a foot taller than you."

"Thanks for noticing that I'm tiny in addition to being a loser," Levi grumped back with a little sneer in Erwin's direction. Though he complained, Levi couldn't really picture himself as being tall, either. He'd probably look like an awkward bean-pole if he was Erwin's height.

"You're not a loser."

"Yeah, I am."

"You're not."

They were interrupted when the door to the restaurant opened again and a different server emerged from the other side with their food balanced expertly on a single tray. He dropped it off on their table quickly, wishing them a good meal before scurrying back inside—no doubt flustered by the amount of people he'd have to face when he went back.

"People think you're cool."

Levi easily scoffed at him.

" _I_ think you're cool," Erwin continued, smiling wider when he thought of something. "Oluo thinks you're cool."

"What the hell is an ‘oluo’?" Levi derided, tucking his hands under his burger and lifting it from the red plastic basket it was sitting in; it really did look amazing and he could only hope that it also tasted as such.

"He's on the team. Bossard?"

 _Oh, that one,_ Levi thought _. What the fuck kind of a name was Oluo_? Levi nodded at him.

"He's been wearing hoodies since he met you in the locker room. And I haven't seen him today yet, but Petra said he got an undercut too."

Levi flushed lightly, obscuring his face behind his burger with a frown. He didn't know if that was supposed to be some sort of flattery or what, but it made him feel somehow more self-conscious about how he looked. All it meant was that more people were taking notice of him.

"What's that got to do with me? You and Eld have undercuts too."

"I don't know. Petra just keeps criticizing him about copying your style."

Style? What style? Levi didn't have a style. He shrugged at Erwin again, taking a big bite from his burger to make sure he got all the layers instead of all bun. He closed his eyes and dropped his burger back onto his tray.

"Oh, my God," he said through the mouthful, covering his mouth with his hand so his half-eaten bite wouldn't be disgustingly presented to Erwin. Levi groaned, "What the fuck, why is this so good?"

" _See!_ I told you!" Erwin took his own huge bite and sighed happily, a huge goofy grin on his face. He wiped a drip of sauce from the corner of his mouth with his thumb, sucking on the end of it to devour every last morsel of flavor.

They sat in silence for a long while, eating their food with pleased groans and delicate crunches of their burgers and fries. The meat was juicy and cooked to perfection, the cheese melty and delicious, the bun lightly toasted on the outside but still fluffy and soft in the middle. The lettuce and tomato were crisp and fresh, and the sauce (whatever it was) was absolutely addicting. Levi's favorite part, though, was the healthy smattering of grilled onions that sat just under the bun.

"Sorry it was so busy in there," Erwin said after another few minutes of their quiet, satisfying meal. Levi wiped his mouth with a napkin, sucking his lips into his mouth and licking the onion flavor from them.

"It's nice out here," was all he said back; Erwin smiled like he was glad that Levi thought so. Levi didn't want to outright complain, knowing that Erwin was just trying to have a good time with him. Now that they were out there by themselves, he did find his mood lightening up again.

Erwin grabbed the tall silver cup with the milkshake in it, frosted on the outside with condensation. He clicked his tongue. "Only one spoon," he said, stirring the shake to mix in the small layer that had melted. He scooped up a dangerously big spoonful and held his hand under it as it made it's way across the table. Levi didn't realize what his intention was until it stopped right in front of his mouth.

"I can feed myself, you know," Levi mumbled before he tentatively opened his mouth for him and accepted the frosty treat. The chocolate flavor hit his tongue and he closed his eyes, the rich sweetness even more satisfying than the burger. He hummed happily until the spoon was slid from his lips. Erwin scooped some more from the cup and stuck the spoon right in his own mouth, not caring at all that it was just in Levi's. Levi took the spoon from him and got in two more spoonfuls before he handed it back. He found it a little gross that they were sharing a spoon, but for Erwin, he'd make an exception.

"The party on Saturday," Erwin began after another bite, "you don't have to go to it." Levi's face twitched, flickering through several emotions in just a split second.

"What, are you uninviting me now?" He didn't bother to mask the tone of hurt in his voice, his face twitching against the full-on scowl it wanted to settle into.

"No, no, no! Not like 'don't come to the party,'" Erwin said hurriedly. "I meant like, you don't have to come if you don't want to. There's gonna be _a lot_ of people there. Way more than there are in there," Erwin explained, pointing a finger back at the door to the busy restaurant.

Levi felt like he should be a little touched that Erwin cared enough about him to worry about his well-being when he was in a situation that they both knew he hated, but he felt annoyed that it was also like Erwin was pointing out one of his bigger flaws. But of course, being the stubborn ass that he was, Levi just said, "I'll go. It's not like I've got anything better to do."

The skeptical look Erwin gave him made Levi want to kick him again. "I invited Nile when I probably shouldn't have."

Why did Erwin have to fucking mention Nile again? He was actually having a good lunch but Erwin was starting to send it rolling steadily downhill. "I can tell you two aren't the best of friends."

Levi scoffed. "And _you_ are?" He regretted his retort when Erwin looked away from him and down at the table. He picked at his fingernails and looked up at Levi again with a flash of sadness in his eyes that Levi didn't want to have to see ever again.

"We used to be good friends," he said. The bitterness in his words was subtle, but Levi still picked up on it. Erwin rolled his eyes and let out a heated sigh. "I don't know what the hell happened to him."

He fidgeted awkwardly on his bench, clearly getting more agitated by the second. Levi didn't think anything could get Erwin to act like that—like him when he was anxious.

"If you knew him when he was a sophomore, he _never_ would've talked to you like that," Erwin snapped, making Levi flinch at the force of his voice behind the words. Erwin softened instantly. "I'm sorry. I just...this makes me really angry. He used to be a great guy."

Levi found that hard to believe, but he listened quietly, nodding when he felt like he needed to and hoping that it didn’t come off too robotic.

"He was a great football player and teammate, and he was fun to be around. Then he started hanging out with those upperclassmen and...and I don't know what the hell they did. Gave him stupidity injections or something. Put his brain in a jar."

"He into drugs?" Levi asked.

"Yes," Erwin replied with a frown.

"That'll do it," Levi stated, as if he had some sort of authority to declare it as the right answer. He'd seen enough druggy-burnouts in juvy to see what that shit could do to a person.

Erwin frowned harder, balling up his wrapper from his burger and tossing it into the basket in front of him. "Why do people have to do that shit?"

"Because we're all just stupid kids?"

Erwin looked at him intently, though his eyes weren't judging when he asked, "Do you do drugs?"

Levi swallowed, nervous again when it came to sharing information about himself that he didn't necessarily want to. "I uhhh...I've tried some stuff." He tucked his hair behind one ear and fixed his eyes on the wood of the picnic table. "Nothing really stuck with me too long...except alcohol." Erwin offered him a small reassuring smile that only made him feel slightly less stupid. "I've been sober for like six months."

"That's good! That's probably better than half the upperclassmen," Erwin joked to lighten the mood again. Levi humored him with a quick little smile. It made him nervous as hell to say anything about himself, especially negative...but at the same time it was strangely liberating to tell someone else little pieces of himself.

"Are you feeling any better?" Erwin asked.

"Not if we keep talking about shit like this."

Erwin nodded. "Alright, no more real-talk." He dug his phone out of his pocket to look at the time. "We should probably head back to class soon… Oh...well nevermind." He gave Levi an awkwardly lopsided grin. "We sorta missed half of art already."

Levi wasn't concerned in the slightest, glad he could just go home and chill out for the rest of the day after their lunch together. Erwin was busy that night, so he didn't have anything else to do, and he definitely did not want to go back to school, that was for damn sure.

"We should get going. I still have to be at practice today," Erwin urged, standing up from the bench and gathering up their trash. "Want me to drop you off at your house?"

Levi hesitated. Erwin had still never seen where he lived. He suddenly felt self-conscious about that, too. Erwin still didn't know that Levi lived by himself; it was inevitable that he'd have to show Erwin where he lived at some point—he couldn't just keep taking advantage of Erwin's house forever.

"Sure," he said quietly.

He followed Erwin back through the rear of the restaurant, dropping off their dishes and trash in the kitchen as they made their way to the front again. When they came through the other side of the kitchen, the restaurant was disturbingly empty—as if the lunch plague had blown through and all that was left were the few survivors. Hitch wasn't anywhere to be seen, but Erwin still left a tip for her with another employee at the register.

The car ride was shorter than Levi had anticipated; Erwin was driving a little fast so he wouldn't be late to practice and get chewed out, like he always seemed to be worried about. He debated whether he should have Erwin drop him off somewhere down the block, but before he could come up with a decision, Erwin was already one house away.

"It's right here," Levi said a second too late, making Erwin step on the brakes a little too suddenly—luckily no one was behind them. He backed up and pulled into the empty driveway in front of the house.

Erwin hunched down and looked through the windshield at Levi's cottage, assessing it with curious eyes. "Your place is really cute. Looks cozy."

"Yeah, it's..." _Small_. _Pathetic. Lonely._ "Home."

Levi gathered up his backpack and hopped out of the truck, careful not to fall that time. He turned to give Erwin a parting wave, but hesitated again. He slung his bag over his shoulder and stuck a hand in the front pocket of his hoodie to play with a stray thread inside.

"You could...come over sometime." Levi swallowed, not sure if what he had offered was a good idea or not. "If you want." Erwin probably didn't want to come over to his stupid little house. It wasn't anything special; it wasn't even particularly nice. What would Erwin even think of it when he found out he lived by himself?

It was stupid, but Levi just wanted Erwin to sit on his couch with him and watch movies. He didn't want to do homework anymore; he just wanted to relax with him, have a cup of tea, play some video games. He wanted Erwin to sit close to him like he had when they were watching horror movies on Halloween.

Erwin smiled at him kindly. That fucking smile, always that fucking smile. "I'd really like that, Levi. I'll see you tomorrow."

Levi nodded stiffly, closing the car door and watching as Erwin waved at him one last time and pulled out of the driveway. He stood there, watching Erwin’s car shrink into the distance until it turned onto a different street and was out of sight.

Erwin wanted to come over?

Levi flushed a deep shade, the blood warming his face; he pressed his chilly fingers to his skin to cool it. He bit his lip against a smile and the quietest of laughs slipped from him as he trotted up the porch steps, a sudden thrill of happiness buzzing through him.

Why did Erwin have to make him feel so fucking gay?

He felt a pair of eyes on him, watching him intently as he rubbed the stupid flush from his cheeks. He wiped the smile from his face like he had been caught doing something naughty. "What the hell are you looking at?" he said to the cat on his porch banister, waiting for him to get home and feed him. Levi unlocked the door and stepped inside.

"You didn't see anything," he dissuaded, shutting his front door firmly behind himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments appreciated c:


	7. Sweet Booty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! This chapter is a bit long, but I don't think too many of you will mind :) I've been waiting forever to write this chapter and I enjoyed writing it so I hope you all will like it too!!

What the hell was he even supposed to wear to a party?

Was he supposed to wear formal, since it was a Homecoming after-party...or casual like he usually wore? Surely some of the people going would change out of their formalwear, but what would Levi know? He'd never been to a party like this. He'd never been to a school dance.

When he had texted Erwin earlier to ask what he should wear (which he had felt completely stupid about), all he had gotten as an unhelpful response was, "Whatever you want."

"I don't know what the hell I want," Levi muttered to himself as he dug through his closet. "Whatever I want," he repeated to a pair of dirty jeans he dug out of the bottom of his hamper. "Why don't I just wear a fairy princess costume?" he droned sarcastically, tossing the jeans back into the heap of clothes below him. He rolled his eyes at himself. Where the hell was that pair of jeans he was looking for?

Was he supposed to try to look good? Who was he trying to look good for? Maybe Erwin, but what was the point in that? Erwin didn't care. But Erwin was probably the only person that he'd know when he was at the party. Maybe Mike or Hanji or Petra too, but he never talked to them much—they were Erwin's friends, not his.

Levi's phone vibrated on his dresser, rattling the contents of the small metal dish of spare change that rested next to it; if the sound wasn't as obnoxious as it was, Levi probably wouldn't have bothered to answer it so quickly. When he flipped the phone open, there was just a text message waiting for him.

**From: Erwin**

**Saturday, 9:56 PM**

**_Do u need a ride?_ **

Levi tapped a quick response into the keys.

**To: Erwin**

**Saturday, 9:57 PM**

**_I can walk._ **

 

**From: Erwin**

**Saturday, 9:57 PM**

**_Its like 10pm_ **

 

**To: Erwin**

**Saturday, 9:57 PM**

**_I can walk._ **

He expected another text, but received a call instead. He let Erwin's name light up the screen for a few more seconds before he pressed the green button to answer it.

"Yes?"

" _Can I have Petra pick you up?_ "

"Do you think I'm incapable of walking myself to your house, which I've done many times before? I'm not going to get abducted or some shit."

" _No, it's just late and I want to make sure you get here before I have to deal with the mess this party is probably going to devolve into. There's already people here._ "

Levi rubbed a hand over his face and sighed heavily into the receiver. "You're not going to let me walk there, are you?" Erwin's silence on the other end was all the answer Levi needed. He sighed again. "What time will she be here?"

" _How does twenty minutes sound?_ "

"Make it thirty. I don't even know where my pants are."

Erwin laughed, the sound light and friendly even through the distortion from the telephone.

" _Alright. She'll be there in half an hour. I'll see you soon._ "

The phone clicked when Erwin hung up and Levi set his phone back on the dresser. He could do this. The first step was getting dressed—that was the easy part. _Thirty minutes,_ he told himself. _Thirty minutes, okay._

 

* * *

  

No, thirty minutes wasn't okay.

Levi spent the entire time he was getting dressed telling himself that he was going to have a good time, but he knew that his chances of that being true were extremely slim. Regardless of whether he could deal with his agoraphobic tendencies, Nile would still be there. Though Erwin had expressly forbid Nile to cause any trouble, Levi still had his doubts that Erwin would be able to do anything about it when he would be busy hosting half the school and trying to keep his house in one piece.

That aside, Levi had settled for only-slightly-more-than-casual for the evening's clothing choice. He wore his pair of deep burgundy knee-high Doc Martens, a Marilyn Manson T-shirt, and his usual hoodie. He had found the pants he had been searching for—his nicest and newest pair of dark skinny jeans that hugged his ass and hips in all the right places (not that anyone would even be able to see with his hoodie on).

Before Erwin had called, Levi had given his undercut a clean buzz and straightened his hair so it sat smoothly in place; he had continued on to tidy up his thin eyebrows, sharpening the ends into menacing points.

In the last few minutes of his time he was a bit adventurous, giving himself a thin, dynamic line of red eyeshadow underneath his eye before frowning at his reflection in the mirror. Although he loved how it looked—the color and shape of the line accenting the subtle, graceful slant of his eyes—he quickly wiped it away.

That was pushing it too much; he was trying to _not_ look exceptionally gay in front of a ton of people. He settled for the tiniest bit of black eyeliner on his lower lashline, nearly jabbing himself in the eye when he heard a sharp knock on his door. When he answered it (with one eye watering and red) Petra was standing there waiting for him with a smile.

"Hey, Levi."

"Hey."

Levi looked her over. Her lips were glossed and her blush was bright; her lashes were curled and her hair sat perfectly perched and wavy against her temple. The dress she wore had a blindingly sparkly sequined bodice and a multicolored layered skirt like a tutu that cut off at her knees. She stood taller than Levi—her small, pedicured feet strapped snugly into a pair of heels that looked like they could stab through a man's skull with zero effort. She wore Hanji's letterman jacket as usual, and Levi noticed that sticking out of one of the deep pockets was a tiara that was equally as blinding as her dress. Obviously she hadn't had the time or the care to change since leaving Homecoming, and even though Levi considered himself to be Kinsey-6 gay, he wouldn't deny that Petra looked very cute—stunning, even.

"Ready to go?"

Nodding his reply, Levi grabbed his phone and keys and stepped out onto the porch with Petra so he could lock the door. His hand trembled the slightest bit when he put the key to the lock, and when he pulled it back the teeth on the key dragged slowly from the tumblers—metal grabbing at metal, like the house was asking Levi if he was absolutely sure about leaving. He shoved the keys in his pocket to silence his doubts and turned from his house with a silently deep breath.

"I really like your boots," Petra complimented as they hopped down the porch steps to the driveway a few short feet away. Levi touched the keys in his pocket, fingering the metal through the barrier of fabric; second-thoughts danced through his head, taunting him more and more as he approached Petra's car.

"Thanks," he tried to reply casually. "I like your dress. It's...uh...sparkly...?" Levi cringed at himself when Petra laughed at his attempt to compliment her back, though there was no malice laced into the sound. She twirled a little, the light from a nearby streetlamp reflecting off of each sequin as she moved; she glittered like a Christmas ornament.

"Hanji helped pick it out. You'd think they were a bird the way they're always attracted to such shiny, flashy things."

Levi gave Petra a quiet laugh and slid into her tiny white sedan. He wrinkled his nose with distaste when his foot kicked a stray can on the floor and stepped on some sort of food wrapper.

"Sorry about the mess," Petra grumbled as she stuffed her skirt into her side of the car, holding it out of the way so it wouldn't get caught in the door. "I took some people home from the dance. Messy people. _Boys,_ " she complained with a roll of her eyes. Levi nodded at her, buckling his seatbelt and settling into his customary cross-armed, cross-legged, blank-faced position. He looked out past his window into the darkness.

He looked back over at her when she roughly tugged the tiara out of her pocket so her seatbelt would sit better across her lap. She set it on the dashboard and Levi stared at the garish decoration where it was on display in front of him. Petra scoffed quietly at it and gave him a little smile.

"I got crowned Homecoming Princess," she said with a laugh. "It's pretty gaudy, isn't it? 

Levi shrugged, not sure what kind of answer she was expecting from him. "It's about as subtle as a brick to the face," he managed to reply, forcing Petra to explode into a fit of laughter, the sound loud in the small space of her car. She wiped the corner of her eye gently so she wouldn't ruin her makeup when a tear threatened to fall from it.

"You should see the Prince crowns. Hanji loves the damned thing," Petra said with a shake of her head as she started up her car and backed too fast out of the driveway without looking. Levi grabbed the armrest of the door in a white-knuckled grip to keep himself from swearing at her already erratic driving. "Erwin actually won Prince," she went on to explain, "but he didn't want it, so he gave it to Hanji."

Levi raised his freshly manicured eyebrow at her. Should he even be surprised that Erwin was a Homecoming Prince?

"It made Hanji really happy, though," Petra continued with a fond smile. "That was really nice of Erwin, wasn't it?"

Petra looked at him with an expression that he didn't know how to place—like she was expecting a certain reaction from him. "Yeah," Levi said, looking back out his window. "That was nice of him."

"How come you didn't go to Homecoming?" Petra asked him as she stopped at a sign, a little too far over the line of the crosswalk. "Didn't Erwin invite you to come with us?"

Levi flushed but didn't turn away from his window when he answered her. "One party is enough for me." He hugged his arms a little tighter to himself. "I don't have to dress up this way, either," he grumbled.

The rest of their car ride passed in silence, Petra driving a little too slow now and drawing Levi's stress into a thin, fragile line with each inch they came closer to Erwin's house.

She drove through the familiar open gate, but didn't get much further than the threshold with the oblivious teens standing idly in her path with drinks in their hands. With a little scoff, she honked at them, long and loud. They milled about for another moment until Petra pressed the car slowly forward with determination, a heavily sarcastic smile plastered on her face as she stared down the assholes in her way. Levi almost laughed; it was funny seeing the bubbly-sweet Petra have a sassy side that he didn't usually get to witness.

They finally made it to the end of the driveway, past the human obstacle course of party-goers that didn't even seem phased by what had happened, and Petra turned her car off. She looked over at Levi who was still staring out his window with his hands now in his lap, fingers fidgeting against each other. He could see her cock her head to the side at him out of the corner of his eye.

"Ya ready?" she asked him.

Levi didn't answer, anxiety tightening his chest and pinching at the back of his neck. Petra leaned over and placed her hand over Levi's. He didn't flinch from it. He didn't move.

When her thumb brushed once over the back of his hand he looked over at her, silent and overly calm. Through the glass and metal of the car door he could hear the beat of the music playing and the shouting laughter of people—the enjoyment of a big party. Though he tried to maintain a cool composure, his rigidity gave him away more than anything else.

"If you need anything just find me or Erwin. Hanji or Mike, too." she told him softly. “We want you to have a good time.”

The way she spoke to him and the words she chose made Levi think that Erwin might've told them about how he was around crowds, or worse yet, that they had noticed themselves. He didn't know which angered him more.

She took her hand back and stepped out of the car, Levi following her lead. He shut his door a little too hard behind himself, the frame of the car rocking with the force of it. Petra lead him around the side of the house to the backyard, the music and chatter louder with each step.

Levi's whole body felt numb, and it wasn't from the chill of the late November evening air. Like sitting in Erwin's car, it felt like he had ended up somewhere he wasn't supposed to be—a wrong bus, a wrong room, a wrong plane of existence. It felt unsettling and uncomfortable and off. Every time he got that feeling his head would always say the same thing: "You shouldn't be here."

"Just try to have a little bit of fun, hm?"

"Sure," Levi grunted, scanning over the crowd of rowdy teens. "Fun."

 

* * *

 

Levi's first mistake was getting out of Petra's car. In hindsight, he probably would have been having a better time if he had been locked in the vehicle all night, playing Tetris on his phone until it died.

His second mistake was forgetting to message his nanna that he wouldn't be available to talk before he left the house.

His third mistake was answering the call from her right when a girl screamed shrilly as she fell into the pool: fruity drink, perfectly tailored Homecoming dress, and all.

" _...Levi?_ "

He cringed at the tone of her voice and tried not to growl when someone bumped into him and sloshed their drink on the ground at his feet. "Yes?"

" _Where are you right now?_ "

He could lie. He could say he was at home watching horror movies or something of the like—it wouldn't be completely unbelievable. But he promised his nanna. He promised her.

"I'm at a party." She said something in reply, but he couldn't quite make it out; the next song pouring from the patio speakers was louder than the last and made it harder for Levi to even hear himself think.

He slunk away from the section of wall he had been leaning against and inched around the pool to get to the nearly empty yard on the other side. The unlit lawn was damp, the grass soft under his boots. He walked until he reached the edge, lined by a stone wall that came up to his mid-thigh and separated the lush foliage of the property from the plain dirt hill beyond that lead off into complete darkness.

Sitting on the low wall, far away from the bustle of the party, he brought the phone back up to his ear. "Sorry, say again?"

" _What kind of a party are you at, dear?_ " Levi didn't miss the worry or the warning in her words.

"A...friend's party."

" _Are you kids getting drunk and smoking dope and doing other things that I should be worried about?_ "

Levi sighed into the phone and pulled his hood up against the chilly breeze that bit at the tips of his ears. He wedged his phone between his ear and shoulder under his hood as he answered her. "There's some drinking. I don't know about anything else." As he said that he caught a whiff of weed in the air, the skunky smell making him wrinkle his nose. "I'm not doing any of it."

" _Can I trust you, Levi?_ "

"Yes, Nanna."

There was a short moment of silence between them before his grandmother said, " _Alright. Any more updates?_ "

"Nothing's changed. I feel like shit and I'm living by myself, what else would be new?"

" _Levi, you know I'd be out there with you if I could. My clients_ _—_ "

"Your clients, I know," Levi said, cutting her off. He fidgeted with his fingertips, picking at the bits of skin peeling from them beneath his short nails. He knew that his nanna's job was important to her, but what about him? Why couldn't he be selfish and do what he wanted too?

"I..." Levi hesitated, ripping a piece of skin from his finger that he hadn't meant to. He stuck his finger in his mouth, sucking the sting from it to distract himself from his own words. "I've gotten a few calls from an unknown number," he started, feeling the unwanted pang of panic anyways, his throat constricting. "I don't know if it was him or..."

" _Oh, Levi_ ," his nanna cooed, her voice concerned and tired. She had heard this from him many times before. " _I don't know how he would've gotten your new number, if he did. I'm sure it's nothing._ "

Levi was silent again until his nanna spoke in a more agitated voice than before. " _If your father doesn't know the unbelievable load of trouble he would be in if he was trying to contact you, he's an even stupider man than I ever could have imagined._ "

Levi closed his eyes. He didn't want to think about his dad anymore. He didn't want to have to worry about him every time he got an anonymous call or saw someone who vaguely resembled him from the corner of his eye. Why couldn't the psycho just fucking die already so he could delete every memory of his early childhood from his memory bank. "Maybe I should just let him find me and get him sent to prison again."

The frown on the other end of the line was almost audible. " _Let's talk about something else, Levi._ "

"Fine."

"Talking to yourself in the dark over here?" came a raspier version of an unfortunately familiar voice.

"What a fucking pathetic weirdo," the dick-drawing friend of Nile chimed in, accompanied by a chorus of laughter from the group of boys as they climbed over the stone wall. Levi panicked for a moment that his nanna had heard them, but she was busy prattling on about some crystal faire she had gone to with one of her friends. When the boys were close enough to him, Levi could smell the marijuana they all reeked of; they were no doubt the reason he had smelled it earlier. One of them pulled Levi's hood down and ignited a flare of rage beneath his skin. He stood up abruptly, switching his phone to the other ear and holding it with his hand, a hard frown carved into his face.

"Nanna. _Nanna_." Levi raised his voice, flinching away from the guys when they came closer and silently challenging them to do something with a glare sharper than a knife. "I have to go now, I don't want to run down my battery."

" _...Oh. Alright. I'll talk to you later, then?_ "

"Tomorrow." Hearing Nile's snicker behind him had Levi trudging back into the crowd of partiers; if he was surrounded by tons of people maybe they wouldn't do anything. Though, if Nile was stoned, there was no telling how completely stupid he would be in any given situation.

" _Have a good time at the party. Be safe. I love you._ "

"You too, bye," he ended abruptly, snapping his phone shut and shoving it into his pants pocket. He took another breath and looked behind him, relieved that he seemed to have lost Nile and his friends somewhere between the pool and the table of drinks in front of the glass doors of the house.

He wanted to leave. He wanted to go home.

Would Erwin be disappointed with him if he left? If he just went without a word? Would he be angry with him since he would've walked himself home at midnight? Erwin was too busy dealing with everyone else and making sure they were okay to notice how Levi was. He wasn't as important. He had barely caught more than a few glimpses of Erwin since he had greeted him upon his arrival.

Levi's eyes wandered, wondering with apprehension where he should even go next, what he should do. He found Hanji and Petra in a circle of people. Hanji was probably entertaining the group with some sort of story, the group watching them and laughing along—Petra sitting and sparkling like a huge diamond in their lap. And she was right; Hanji was wearing the Prince crown and the thing looked like a bedazzled nightmare.

He turned his attention back toward the house and spotted Mike through the glass of the door, sitting on one of the living room couches with his arm around a boyish-looking girl—a senior on the softball team, his girlfriend. Levi was pretty sure her name was Nanaba. Mike's cheeks were flushed, and Levi couldn't tell if it was a blush from something she had said to him or if it was from the unknown drink in his cup. He looked away when Mike kissed her sweetly, leaning into her and putting his other hand on her thigh. The display of affection made Levi uncomfortable like he had been spying on them—a voyeur.

Mike and Hanji had girlfriends. A lot of the guys on the football team had girlfriends. Why didn't Erwin have a girlfriend? He certainly wasn't undesirable. He was popular, the varsity quarterback, an A student. He had a great body, decent manners, a chivalrous demeanor. He had girls making eyes at him all the time, so what was the issue?

There wasn't even a question in Levi's mind why he didn't have a boyfriend for himself.

His thoughts were bitter, as was the taste of dryness in his mouth. Turning to the table next to him, Levi grabbed one of the red solo cups and ladled himself a good amount of punch from one of the massive bowls in the center of the table.

He swallowed a huge gulp to quench his thirst but nearly spat the drink out in the face of the girl standing next to him on instinct when the heavy taste of alcohol burned his throat. The drink was fruity but tasted like it had about nine different types of alcohol in it, some of the flavors not quite working together—not that a drunk teenager would even notice after a few cups of the stuff. He stared into the cup in his hand. "Fucking jungle juice bullshit," he swore at the liquid.

Though he cursed, the warmth from that first mouthful still spread through his chest, rolling down his legs and back up and out to his fingertips. He stared into the cup for another minute before he brought the drink back to his lips, hesitating as he tipped it back for another sip. His eyes clenched hard, his self-control already falling by the wayside.

His juvenile probation had only been lifted about a month before he had moved to town; there was no way in hell they'd let him live by himself if he was still on probation. The only reason he was even there was because his stupid aftercare program put him in a school that was out of the city. Already from a young age he had been deemed an "at risk youth," so with his nanna's permission they had decided to send him somewhere "less risky"—like assholes didn't live in suburban towns, apparently.

The program had only ended a few weeks ago after he had stayed clean, stayed out of trouble, and went to all his classes. He didn't know if he could still get in trouble if he drank. Of course he'd get in trouble for being underage, but with his record the consequences would be much more severe than anyone else at the party. He wasn't supposed to have anymore random drug tests, so no one would know, right? It wasn't like he was the only kid drinking here. He looked around again to confirm what was already obvious; nearly every other hand he caught a glimpse of was holding a red plastic cup.

Everyone had their own groups and people to chat and laugh with, Levi noticed. If someone left their group they would quickly find another, sucked into the conversation like the cells of an organism splitting, joining, and multiplying.

He felt like he was the only straggler. Nowhere to go. No one to talk to. No place to fit in. He didn't know where Erwin was.

"Fuck it," Levi snapped at himself, downing the rest of his drink in one go. He filled the cup again and drained half immediately. "Just...fuck it."

 

* * *

 

Levi swayed slightly where he leaned against a wall of the house, away from the party and with his cup still in his hand. He slid down the wall slowly until he sat on the ground with his knees folded up against his chest, not caring if he got his hoodie and pants filthy with the dirt he was now sitting on.

He was onto his sixth cup of horribly mixed drink—which by then tasted like nothing at all—and in his own mind he felt completely fine. He scooted his feet out a little further from himself, his boots crunching against the sparse gravel beneath him. Leaning to the side, he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter that he had stolen from a table a short while earlier. He opened it to find that there were only four in the pack, one of which was upside-down, the packed tobacco of the end standing out starkly from the white filtered ends of its companions.

He pulled one of the properly facing cigarettes from the pack and stuck it between his lips, letting it balance there as he flicked the lighter several times to get it to light. The flame wavered with his hand as he unsteadily held it to the end of the cigarette and protected it from any draft of air with his other. He sucked on the end, drawing the smoke into his mouth. He threw the lighter into the dirt to cool off when the metal burned his thumb; he had kept it lit for too long without even realizing.

Though it had been a while (he only ever smoked when he had been drinking), Levi didn't cough when he took his long drags. The nicotine buzzed through his already-intoxicated veins and quelled his nerves only marginally. He took turns sucking the smoke into his lungs and sucking down his drink until the cigarette was nothing more than the filter. Putting it out in the dirt, he lit the next one immediately and rested his forearms on his bony knees. The rim of his cup dangled dangerously between his ring finger, pinky, and thumb, while he held the lit cigarette with the other two fingers.

Swirling the liquid in his cup with the lazy motion of his wrist, he watched, mesmerized, as the smoke rose from the burning cherry of the cig—the bright orange of the heat slowly eating away at the paper and tobacco. He took a last large swig of his drink, leaving a bit at the bottom to extinguish any lit ash that he tapped from the end of the cigarette. He wasted the second cigarette, only taking a few puffs and otherwise watching the smoke curl around his hand and stain it with the after-smell that, for some reason, he really liked.

He dropped the butt into his cup and brought the backs of his fingers to his nose. He inhaled slowly, and through the haze of his dampened senses, he smelled that after-smell that he was thinking about. It was somehow comforting—a warm kind of scent that didn't have the same sharpness of the actual smoke. Levi wondered if it was comforting to him because of his nanna.

Lighting the next cigarette, he held it between his lips and tilted his head back, resting it against the hard surface of the wall. He watched the end turn to ash as he sucked down on it, only tapping it away when it threatened to fall on his face and burn him.

His nanna didn't smoke anymore; she was far too into the natural health scene to smoke now. But Levi remembered that when he visited her as a child, though the air was stained with nicotine, it was a relief compared to living at home. It was an island getaway.

Levi finished the third cigarette and spat into the dirt next to him, getting rid of the ash taste in his mouth since he didn't have any drink left; if he was sober he would have slapped himself for doing something so vile. His eyes wavered over the last cigarette in the pack, focusing and unfocusing on the tobacco visible from the end of it.

That cigarette was just like Levi—a loner. It was always saved for last. The lucky cigarette. But everyone knew there was nothing special about it. It was exactly the same as the other cigarettes in the pack, if not a little stale from being the last one to be considered.

Flipping the top closed again, he grabbed the lighter at his side and stood with some difficulty, his limbs refusing to cooperate for the first few seconds. He dusted his ass off clumsily and lazily before he made his way around the corner and back to the party. He wanted something to drink that wasn't alcohol, already feeling dehydrated from his three cigarettes and six drinks...or was it seven? Eight?

He tossed the lighter and pack of cigarettes back on the table he had taken them from and dropped the cup down as well; he left the lucky cigarette for whoever he had taken it from, though someone else would probably find it and smoke it first. He slipped through the open glass doors of the entertainment room, tripping over the threshold with a loud swear and making a few people glance over at him. He didn't pay them any mind, focusing as much of his brain function as he could on the task of making it around the first floor to the kitchen.

He passed through the living room where Mike and Nanaba were still on the couch together. Mike whispered something quietly in her ear that made her smile and kiss him again, her hand sliding gently over Mike's scruffy chin. They didn't even notice that Levi was in the room.

The small reading room that came next on his path was in general disarray, cups and plates littering every surface, one of the side tables lying defeated on its side. The plush cushions of the loveseat were on the ground for some reason, though no one was sitting on them or the bare frame.

Surprisingly, the kitchen was empty. After a struggle to think of why, Levi figured it was because all the food and drinks for the guests were outside. He leaned into the counter and reached up into a cupboard to grab a metal cup—the cherry-red one that he always used and that Erwin put on the lower shelf for him so he could reach it easily.

When he turned around he almost dropped his cup. Nile and his two idiots were leaning against the fridge and smirking at him.

"Wha'the fuck d'you want?" Levi frowned hard at himself, the gesture feeling heavily exaggerated to himself. He hadn't spoken aloud since he started drinking and he hadn't expected to slur so badly.

The other friend Levi didn't have a name for stepped up in his space, his chest in Levi's face. He still smelled strongly of weed, giving away that the three of them had probably kept smoking throughout the night. His smile was lazy, his movements slowed from the THC and whatever else was in his system. Levi frowned again when he had the thought that, if this guy wasn't such an asshole, he'd think he was kind of hot. The way he was looking at Levi was like he was leering at him, undressing him with his eyes; but there was a sarcasm behind the expression that Levi didn't like one bit.

"How'd you get invited?" he crooned quietly in Levi's ear. "You suck someone's dick?" Levi's face warmed, turning impossibly more red than it had already been from his state of drunkenness.

"Probably the whole football team," Nile chimed in with a disgusted scoff. "That why you hang around the locker room all the time?"

Levi darted his eyes around, starting to feel sick from the anxiety and alcohol churning inside him. Where was Erwin? Why couldn't he be here and kick these douchebags out of his house like he had promised he would?

The guy in front of Levi stroked a finger under his chin, making him flinch and look up at him, though he stayed frozen where he was. Why wasn't his body cooperating? Why wouldn't his legs work and let him walk away? Why wouldn't his arm clock this guy in the face to make him leave him alone? 

"He's not denying it, is he?" the guy said, with a roar of laughter from the two behind him. A thumb joined the finger and stroked the swell of Levi's chin, parting his lips. He brought his face closer to Levi's and for a terrified moment, Levi thought that he might kiss him. "Wanna suck mine, too?"

Levi came to his senses and swatted the hands and face away from him, flustered and angry at the three laughing boys in front of him. _Perfect. Just fucking perfect._

Against his better judgement, he moved toward the group to get at the fridge. Clear "STAY OUT" signs were taped all over the doors, but Levi knew that he was allowed in there; there would be a bottle of grape juice in there for him with his name on it like there always was.

He got the door open no more than an inch before Nile leaned his weight on the door and the handle ripped from Levi's hand.

" _Move_." He yanked at the door again but it didn't budge; Nile had too much of a weight advantage over him.

Nile drew himself up, flaunting his height over Levi and trying to make him feel small. He put his face close to Levi's like the other guy had, but without any of the charm. "Why don't you make me?" he breathed in Levi's face.

"Giddout of my face, shitbreath," Levi snarled, shoving Nile hard in the chest and slamming his back against the fridge, making the contents rattle inside. Nile moved so fast that Levi hardly registered when his hand fisted in the neck of his hoodie. The fist tightened and Levi was thrown to the floor; the cup in his hand clattered loudly across the tile when he hit the ground and the air was knocked out of him in an abrupt rush.

Levi sucked in a sharp breath, a flash of his father's face crossing his mind. He couldn't hide his startled expression before Nile saw it and sneered at him. His friends were silent, apparently as surprised as Levi was that he had gone that far. He stood over Levi, his face holding all malice and not a hint of a jest. His boot stepped hard next to Levi's face, making him flinch and bring his arms up defensively to cover his head.

If he hadn't drank as much as he had—if he wasn't in Erwin's house—he would've fought back. But that wasn't the situation. He didn't want to fight back for once. He just wanted to sink into the floor and disappear forever.

"Yeah. That's what I thought, _Grandma's Boy._ "

The sole of his boot squeaked against the tile when it left its place and Levi brought his arms back down to his chest, watching Nile retreat with his friends. They left him there alone, lying on the cold floor—his back aching from the impact, his head spinning. He squeezed his eyes shut against the thoughts of his father throwing him around, but it only made the memories more vivid. He was beginning to remember why he hated drinking. It always brought up feelings that he didn't want and didn't expect. Ones he didn't need.

That was it. He was fucking done with this party.

...But he couldn't go home. He had enough sense in him that he knew if he got picked up by a cop on his walk home when he was this inebriated he would be utterly and completely fucked. His only course of action would be to find a vacant room, lock himself in it, and go the fuck to sleep.

But first, he had to pee. It was probably unhealthy how long he had been holding it (since around his third drink).

Already over getting something else to drink, Levi left his cup where it was on the floor and stood unsteadily with the aid of the counter. He walked to the bathroom just outside the kitchen arches, using the wall as a crutch. He opened the door and found a girl crying on the other side, leaning against the bathtub next to the toilet.

"Sorry," Levi apologized, averting his eyes; she was mostly-clothed but with the way she sat, Levi could see directly up her skirt and one of her boobs was threatening to fall out of her bra that was visible over her low-cut shirt. He started to close the door again when she spoke up, her speech so slurred that Levi was surprised she was still conscious. She was so out of it that Levi had a terrible passing notion that someone had put something in her drink.

"Can...you hel...help me?" she asked between sniffling hiccups. Levi wanted to say no. He was woozy and needed to pee like a racehorse and wanted to get away from every living creature on this property so he could sleep. But it didn't look like anyone else had helped her, even though she was occupying the only downstairs bathroom.

No one had helped Levi when he was ever in trouble, so why would he want to help someone else? But maybe that was a reason why he _should_ help her _._

He stepped into the bathroom and crouched down in front of her, steadying himself with an arm braced against the side of the tub. Levi moved slowly so he wouldn't startle her, hooking his finger under her bra strap and pulling it back over her shoulder; he adjusted her shirt next so she wasn't spilling so far out of it. He tugged the side of her bunched-up skirt down so it sat right and didn't expose her so easily. "What's wrong?" he asked, worried that she might tell him about some guy that had taken advantage of her; he didn't want to have to deal with that.

"I...I...I lost...my _shooooeee,_ " she sobbed, grabbing onto Levi's arm. He looked blankly at her feet, and indeed, she was only wearing one shoe. The other was nowhere to be seen. All of his worry melted away in an instant—this girl was just a drunk mess. "And I...I...just really...want...chicken _nuggets_ ," she added with another whimpering sob.

Levi pulled his arm from her grasp and patted her awkwardly on the shoulder when she started bawling again. Obviously this girl wasn't going to be leaving anytime soon and Levi still needed to pee. He'd have to look for a bathroom upstairs unless he wanted to piss in a bush somewhere outside, which was out of the question. Disgusting.

He left the sobbing girl in the bathroom, shutting the door softly behind him. Someone else could make her chicken nuggets and find her shoe.

On his way back to the front of the house, he stopped in the kitchen again. A bottle of tequila sat abandoned on the counter, a huddle of used shot glasses sitting around it like a prayer circle. No one was around and Levi figured he'd already fucked up plenty that night, so what could another shot hurt?

He poured himself a full shot and knocked it back, grimacing immediately at the taste of it; he hated tequila. He poured another and drank it before he continued on his way, ignoring the complaints of the people he bumped into on his unsteady journey.

When he reached the staircases framing the front door, he found that each of them had a thin rope tied across the banisters with a sign dangling from it. He stood in front of the left staircase and ripped the sign from the rope to look at it. He held it too close to his face, the paper brushing his nose before he held it away again to focus on the words. It just said "NO" in giant letters. He crumpled the paper into a ball and threw it over his shoulder.

Levi tried to untie the rope with clumsy fingers, but gave up after less than a minute when he couldn't figure out which part of it he was even pulling at. He debated going over the rope, but the prospect produced the same internal reaction as if someone had asked him to tightrope-walk between two skyscrapers over a pit of broken glass and rusty nails.

He crawled under it awkwardly, resisting the bizarre urge to climb up the rest of the stairs on his hands and feet like a dog. He stood up, retaining what little dignity he had left, and climbed slowly up the long flight of stairs that seemed to never end. His legs felt like lead with each step, his body heavy.

Stairs. Why did this house have fucking stairs? _It better be a stairway to Heaven_ , he thought groggily. _Or at least a bed._

There were three doors lining a short hallway when he reached the top, and he was happier than he had ever been in his entire life when he trudged through the open door of a bathroom—pristine and unused. The relief he felt when he emptied his bladder was better than anything he had ever experienced.

It was better than tea. It was better than a warm blanket on a rainy night. It was better than rubbing one out while thinking about Erwin.

Well...maybe not that good...

He zipped his jeans back up and washed his hands. On his way out, he glanced at himself in the mirror, his eyes unable to focus on his reflection long enough to get an inkling of how fucked up he actually looked.

With drunken curiosity, Levi checked out the other rooms on the top floor. There was a room that he figured was something like a storage room—boxes stacked high on one side, a few filing cabinets lining another, three hefty bags of cat food sitting in a leaning stack on the floor.

Oh yeah, the cats. Levi had still never seen the cats. Where even were they? How were they not freaking out from the chaos going on downstairs?

The other room was a sitting room or something of the sort. There was only a small sofa and a desk with an accompanying chair. There were two huge containers on the ground in the corner that Levi didn't really bother to look at when he made a beeline for the sofa. It wasn't a bed, but it was good enough.

The second his ass hit cushion, the tequila hit him. He clutched his head—the room spinning—dizzy from his sudden movement from standing to sitting. He leaned into the arm of the sofa, propping himself up while he attempted to get ahold of himself.

"Fuck," he groaned at himself. " _Fuucckk_."

Levi fumbled for his phone, wanting to check the time. When he finally got it out of his uncooperative pocket, he flipped it open. There were text messages waiting for him.

Shit. He hoped they weren't from his nanna. She would be so disappointed in him if she could see him. He had promised he wouldn't do anything. He promised her that she could trust him. He _promised_.

He opened his inbox with a particular sense of dread, but discovered that the messages were from Erwin, the most recent one from about an hour ago.

**From: Erwin**

**Sunday, 12:47 AM**

**_Hey where are u?_ **

 

**From: Erwin**

**Sunday, 1:12 AM**

**_Are u still here_ **

 

**From: Erwin**

**Sunday, 1:38 AM**

**_?? :(_ **  

That little frowny face made Levi's heart clench. _Don't do that. Don't make that face at me._  

It took Levi a few tries and a few long minutes to type his response, his fingers and brain not wanting to cooperate with each other.

**To: Erwin**

**Sunday, 2:41 AM**

**_y Eah._ **

Erwin's reply came within seconds, the flash of the screen and the vibration in Levi's hand surprising him and making him jolt. He held the phone closer to his face to read the message.

**From: Erwin**

**Sunday, 2:41 AM**

**_Where?_ **

Levi didn't answer him, flipping his phone shut and tossing it on the floor at his feet. He didn't want Erwin to find him anymore. He didn't want him to see him. He was just a mess, like that chicken nugget girl in the downstairs bathroom. Levi wondered if she was even still there.

With his phone too far for him to bother grabbing again, Levi didn't know how much time he spent sitting there in silence. He could still hear the beat of the music outside and below him—he could almost feel it. How many songs had passed?

For a moment, he almost felt jealous of the fun the other people were having. They all had their friends. They weren't alone.

Ironically, Levi felt far less alone in this room by himself than he did when he was in the company of so many other people. But he figured somehow, that made at least a little bit of sense. He had always been a loner. The only friends he had ever made...he didn't know where they were now. They were just small children when he had moved away. They had their own lives now—probably in good places, doing important things. They probably didn't even remember him.

He closed his eyes and clenched his fists against his thighs. He could feel how hammered he was and he wanted it all to go away, his thoughts continuing to stray to unhappy places. But it didn't work like that; he'd have to wait, agonizing minute after agonizing minute, hour after hour, until all of the alcohol was out of his system. He'd have to sit there and stew in his regret, thinking about every single time he had ever fucked up—and there were plenty enough instances of that to last him the rest of the night and well into the next day.

He didn't want to do this anymore, but he had slipped. He'd given in to his stupidity again. That first intentional sip of his drink was his downfall. Shoving Nile was a mistake. He knew he shouldn't have, but he had anyways. He didn't want to get in fights anymore. He didn't want to be an alcoholic.

He didn't want to be like his father.

Sweat from his forehead stung his eyes so he rubbed at them. When he pulled his hands away, his fingers were smudged black with the eyeliner he had completely forgotten that he had put on, and the backs of his hands were wet. He touched his cheeks with his fingertips, following the trail of wetness down to his chin where it fell in drops onto the front of his hoodie. He grabbed the fabric tight in his fist, feeling how damp it was and remembering how it felt to have Nile unexpectedly grab him in the kitchen.

When had he started crying?

A knock on the door startled Levi into hastily wiping his eyes on his sleeves, mopping up any evidence of his vulnerability. "Occupied," he called out at the door.

The knob turned and the door was pushed open. "Is'said don' come in, you fuckin—" Levi's slurring shout cut off abruptly when he saw the tall blond at the door. Erwin wavered in the doorway, but Levi realized after a moment that Erwin was standing completely still; _he_ was the one that swayed where he sat, a small boat tossed by the waves of the sea.

"Levi..."

Levi didn't like Erwin's tone. He sounded disappointed. He looked away from Erwin, not wanting him to see his face if he looked at all like he had been crying.

The sofa dipped next to him, Erwin's heavy weight settling close to his side. He hadn't even noticed that Erwin had closed the door or walked the distance from it to the sofa. He wasn't sure if he wanted Erwin to sit so close to him at the moment.

"How are you?" Erwin asked him quietly, his thigh nudging against Levi's to catch his full attention.

Levi looked back at him petulantly, trying to give him a "how the hell do you think?" roll of his eyes, but regretted the movement instantly when it made his head spin faster and a wave of nausea roll through him. He didn't _really_ feel like he was going to puke; he was usually good about telling when he absolutely _had_ to _,_ and avoided having to actually do it as much as was humanly possible. But if he accidentally yacked on Erwin there would be no way he could ever forgive himself.

"You reek like alcohol," Erwin told him. He leaned a little closer to Levi and sniffed at the air around him. "And cigarettes."

Levi made a face at him—pinched in annoyance and contorted with disgust at himself. "I dinnit drink _that_ much," he countered, trying and failing to keep the slur from his words.

"Mm." Levi could hear how Erwin's response was skeptical—the stupid fucking asshole. "How much?"

Levi shrugged, swaying after the movement and surprising himself when he bumped into Erwin's side.

"Give me an estimate in shots. Please."

Why did he fucking care? Levi's face scrunched again as he thought, trying to remember all the times he had refilled his cup. He shrugged again, his hands coming up to his head and wavering around in the air. "Dunno wha's in the punch."

"How much of that did you have?"

"Probub...prolly...six to ten cups. Dunno." Levi grimaced at himself again, the tequila really starting to fuzz his mind and loosen his movements. He lifted two fingers, nearly hitting Erwin in the face with the fast and clumsy motion. "Two tequila."

‘… _Three tequila, floor,’_ he finished in his head.

Erwin sighed loudly through his nose. "What happened to being sober for six months?" he asked gently.

Levi became suddenly angry, his face contorting so hard that his mouth opened with his frown and he bared his teeth like a territorial feral animal. He balled his hands into fists, scraping his nails against the fabric of his jeans.

"It was...an _accident_ ," he said, his voice rising in volume as he tried harder to control his slur with slow words and long syllables. He felt tears well up in his eyes again and smacked his palms into them so Erwin wouldn't see. He leaned back too fast to rest against the back of the sofa and slammed the back of his head into the wall instead. The loud noise that shook the wall startled something into motion on the other side of the room, making Levi look over at the bins in confusion.

"Whoa, whoa! You okay?" Erwin asked, his warm hand grabbing the back of Levi's head when he tottered backwards again. Levi looked up at him, his eyes struggling to stay fixed on the blue of the irises in front of him as he swayed against Erwin's hand keeping him upright.

Why were Erwin's eyes so pretty? Levi had never seen another person who had eyes that captivated his attention so easily. They were bright and clear, the purest of water. But there was also something about the way that they looked at him.

Levi stared at the rest of Erwin's face. He stared at his lips. He remembered his dream from class (and many others since then) and suddenly wanted to feel what those lips felt like. They looked so soft and full and he wanted to bite them.

He wasn't nervous about it, but that was most likely because of how drunk he was. He didn't care anymore; even though he wasn’t going to be kissed back, he just wanted to kiss Erwin since he wasn't going to get the chance again. They could both just laugh it off like it hadn't happened, blame it on Levi being shitfaced and not knowing what he was doing.

But somewhere in the back of his mind, Levi knew _exactly_ what he was doing.

He leaned forward, Erwin's hand slipping from the back of his head to his shoulder. Levi's heart beat hard against his ribs as their faces came steadily closer. He'd just kiss him. Right now.

"Wha—" Erwin started, cutting off with a grunt when Levi's nose smashed into his chin hard enough to knock his head back before he grabbed Levi's shoulders to steady him again. Levi blinked hard against the dull pain in the bridge of his nose and frowned hard against Erwin's neck where his face now rested.

He fucking missed. What a fucking moron.

Erwin rubbed Levi's back when he groaned heavily into his skin, not wanting to move from where he was leaning against his sturdy chest and taking advantage of his position. Levi rubbed his nose up Erwin's neck and made him flinch against the ticklish sensation. He smelled so good. Did he even know how good he smelled?

"Ow!" Erwin exclaimed at him, a little laugh at the end of the sound. "Did you...did you just _bite_ me?"

Levi removed his mouth from Erwin's neck and pressed his forehead into the fresh set of teeth marks set into the skin beneath him. He shook his head slowly, still hiding his face from Erwin. " _No,_ " he replied with all the innocence of a guilty child.

Erwin let his blatant lie slide and rubbed a hand over his back again. "Are you going to be alright?" he asked, clearly worried.

" _'m fine!_ " Levi yelled into his neck. Another rustle sounded from the bins in the room, accompanied by strange hissy-grunting noises. Levi turned his face without moving away, speaking into Erwin's shirt collar. "The fuck izzat?"

"Sorry," Erwin apologized, "the boys are fussy tonight. They're not used to other people being up here or...commotion." Levi frowned at the last word. "Commotion." What the hell was Erwin talking about trains for?

"Boys?"

"My pets, Sonny and Bean. Well...I guess they're Hanji's, but their step-dad is tired of their house smelling like a zoo with fourteen other animals. So I've sort of adopted them, I suppose."

Erwin sat Levi back up, who whined angrily at the loss of his warm pillow. He arranged him gingerly on the sofa so he wouldn't fall backwards into the wall again. "Want to hold one?" Levi didn't even know what they were, so he just shrugged. He was tired of trying to talk, sluggish and stubborn from alcohol and lack of sleep.

"Do your hands smell like alcohol?" Erwin asked him, standing up and walking over to one of the bins.

Levi shook his head no. He lifted his hands to his face and wiggled his fingers. "Washed 'em."

"Good."

Erwin bent down and reached into the bin. Though the plastic was semi-translucent, Levi couldn't really see what he was reaching for; it just looked like a big brown lump in a nest of bedding. When Erwin touched it, it curled up suddenly and grunted at him again, the sounds almost like tiny sneezes. "Hey, hey," Erwin cooed at it, "it's just me."

He scooped up the ball and after a moment it relaxed and stopped making the noise at him. "Bean is a little nippy, so I'll let you hold Sonny. I think he'll like you," Erwin said, coming back over to sit next to Levi again. "He likes to keep to himself, but he's a real sweetheart." Levi looked down into Erwin's hands and saw a handful of spikes and a long, twitchy nose.

"That's not a cat," Levi said dumbly. Erwin blinked at him and then laughed, the sound deep and hearty.

" _No_. This is a hedgehog. What made you think he was going to be a cat?" he asked with a highly amused smile.

Levi flushed with embarrassment. That had sounded really stupid, hadn't it? "Cat food?"

Realization dawned on Erwin, and he nodded. "Hedgehogs eat cat food. Well, only certain kinds. And some vegetables." At least that explanation made Levi feel a little less stupid. How the hell was he supposed know that hedgehogs ate cat food?

"Also little mealy-worms," Erwin added, pinching his fingers at Levi like he was offering one to him. Levi shuddered, his hands flailing a bit as if he could wave away the thoughts of insects from the air in front of him.

"Ew!"

Erwin chuckled again and scooted closer to Levi, their sides touching. "So do you want to hold him?"

"'s it gonna stab me?"

"No, no. The spines don't actually hurt that much. And their bellies are really soft. Go ahead and pet him," Erwin allowed. "Just a finger or two on his back, and stroke with the spines toward me. Like a cat, don't pet him the wrong way."

Levi thrust his hand out to it and stilled suddenly when Erwin tutted at him. "Slowly." Levi concentrated all his efforts on moving his hand slowly, finally touching the back of the small creature and yanking his hand away when it hissed at him and puffed up its spines.

He frowned at Erwin, as if he had just played a trick on him. "Pet him again," Erwin advised. "It might take a bit for him to get used to you, but he should settle. Bean is the one that took like two months before he stopped throwing hissy fits."

Levi touched the hedgehog again, and it huffed again. He hesitated but continued to pet it slowly and gently until it relaxed all the way. Its texture was strange, the spines smooth and unintimidating as they lay flat against its back. Erwin smiled and held Sonny over Levi's lap, nodding at him to put his hands out. Levi complied, cupping his hands together and receiving a handful of hedgehog.

It fussed for a bit, little feet stepping around on Levi's palms as it adjusted to the newer, smaller pair of hands. When it settled finally, Levi moved his fingers gently against its underside—Erwin was right.

"Soft..." he commented quietly. He leaned sideways and his cheek met Erwin's shoulder. Erwin didn't push him away, but scooted closer to him instead, propping Levi up a little better with the bulk of his body.

Sonny's nose twitched around curiously and Levi couldn't deny that it was really cute; its nose seemed to have a mind of its own. It found one of Levi's fingertips and licked at it, nibbling gently and making Levi's finger twitch from the feeling.

"Yeah." Erwin smiled. "He likes you."

"That tickles, you shit," Levi grumbled at the hedgie, making Erwin laugh again. Levi held him still anyways, petting him as best he could while he was perched in his hands and letting him nip and lick his fingers as he pleased.

Levi rubbed his cheek into Erwin's shoulder and was surprised when Erwin moved his arm and put it around him. He closed his eyes and leaned into the side of chest, close enough to Erwin that he could smell him again—the light, fading scent of his Old Spice was warm and comforting like tea. He could swear he could feel Erwin's hand in his hair, though it could just be a drunk imagining; he didn't open his eyes to check.

"I missed...your game," Levi mumbled quietly. "Should've gone."

The hand that Levi had thought was stroking through his hair rubbed at his arm comfortingly instead, Erwin's bicep flexing against his upper back. "That's alright. You don't have to go to any of my games," Erwin consoled. "It was a good game, though."

Levi hadn't told the entire truth. He _had_ gone to the Homecoming game. He tried to stay, but he only lasted a pathetic half an hour before the rowdiness of the sports game sent him walking right back home. He really was a shitty friend if he couldn't even sit there for one game and support Erwin, yet he was taking advantage of Erwin's niceness and his own drunkenness to press further against Erwin's body until the arm hugged tighter around his shoulders.

His mouth moved without his brain controlling it. "I really..." Levi paused to yawn. "...really like you...Erwin." He didn't look up to see his face, but Erwin patted his shoulder in a friendly manner.

"I like you too, Levi," Erwin replied easily.

Too easily. He didn't get it. He didn't get what Levi meant. Levi scrunched his eyelids. That was stupid. That was so fucking stupid. Why did he say anything? He mentally zipped his lips—more like hot glued them—and didn't dare say another word for the next few long minutes as he continued to gently pet Sonny.

He slid down Erwin's side a little further, unable to even move the muscles to open his eyes again. "Hey," Erwin called to him, rubbing at his arm again. "You passing out on me?"

Levi gave a noncommittal grunt and didn't move. He made a noise akin to a frog being stepped on when Erwin gingerly slid out from under him and off of the sofa; he was tired of having his warm resting place removed from him every time he got comfortable. The sofa was far less gratifying than he had initially thought, especially without Erwin there.

He just wanted to fucking sleep.

"I'm going to put Sonny back before you drop him on the floor," Erwin said, lifting the hedgie Levi had forgotten about from his hands and shuffling around on the other side of the room to he plop him back into his bin-house.

"Come on," Erwin said with a grunt as he heaved Levi up to a standing position. Levi opened his eyes and his vision swam. He staggered into Erwin and was held steady with firm hands. "Let's get you to bed, alright?"

"'s what I was doin'," Levi complained, looking back at the sofa forlornly.

"You're not staying up here by yourself. I want to keep an eye on you."

 _'What are you, my nanna?'_ Levi wanted to retort, but he just blinked heavily at Erwin.

"You can sleep in my bed," Erwin offered, leading him to the door. If Levi was sober, he would've gotten more flustered, maybe argued against it—but right now the keyword was 'bed' and Levi didn't care whose it was as long as he got to sleep in it.

The trip down the stairs was a challenge, Levi's legs and balance much more out of sync than the last time he had been standing. Erwin had a hand on his shoulder the whole time and Levi grumpily thought that it must've been how it felt to be one of those stupid little kids on a leash at a theme park.

He groaned angrily when Erwin brought him over to the other staircase. Who the hell designed this house so that the top floor wasn't connected?

"Would you like me to carry you?" Erwin asked playfully when Levi shied away from the stairs like a petulant child. _Yes_ , Levi answered Erwin in his head.

"'m not a _girl,_ " he said out loud, starting to climb the stairs despite himself. He teetered backwards when he was halfway up, but Erwin was standing behind him for that very reason, his chest pressing against Levi's back and preventing him from a painful tumble down the stairs.

When they reached the top, there was just a small landing and a single door. Erwin reached over Levi and pushed the door open for him. Beyond the threshold there was just a single huge room—Erwin's room.

The room was shaped like an L, the door situated in front of a futon with many pillows that sat against the opposite wall; it faced a huge TV that was nestled neatly into a nook next to the door. The room took a sharp 90-degree turn into the rest of the space—many bookshelves and a large desk with a hutch sat on one wall, a dresser in a corner, Erwin's obscenely large bed in another.

Erwin directed Levi's attention to a door in the corner of the L. "Bathroom's in there if you need it." Levi nodded lazily, impatiently staggering over to the bed and sitting down heavily on the edge.

"Do you want PJs?" Erwin asked, kneeling down in front of Levi and beginning to unlace his tall boots for him. Levi shook his head exaggeratedly, making himself dizzy. Erwin was already doing too much for him. Levi's hand found one of Erwin's blankets and took it in his fingers; he rubbed the fabric between his thumb and the side of index finger, the texture strangely fascinating to him at the moment.

"Gonna sleep in your jeans?" Levi shook his head again, moving the fingers of his unoccupied hand to fumble with the button of his pants; he tugged down the zipper as Erwin tugged his boot off and freed one of his feet. Levi bent his leg up awkwardly to peel his sock off, silently relieved at how good it felt to have his toes naked and breathing fresh air again. When Erwin pulled off his other boot and sock, Levi rested his foot against Erwin's thigh, scrunching his toes into the denim of his jeans and the thick muscle beneath.

Levi's face warmed when he abandoned feeling the blanket to scoot his jeans awkwardly down his hips and over his ass. He struggled with the tight fabric at his thighs until Erwin reached over and helped him, pulling his jeans down his legs and off his feet. Erwin couldn't hide the little smirk playing at his lips when he commented, "Nice underwear."

Levi looked down at himself, having forgotten what pair he was actually wearing, and flushed harder. He had on a particularly small pair of boxer briefs that cut off just under his ass and sat high on his pale upper thighs. The milky pink fabric was girly—as were the strawberries that made up most of the pattern and the tiny cursive letters flecked here and there that spelled out the word "Sweet!".

Erwin laughed when Levi attempted to cover his eyes—more like dragging his hand over Erwin's entire face than anything else.

"They're cute," Erwin said with a smile when Levi's hand fell away again, holding the covers up for Levi to slide under. Levi slumped sideways and buried his face in Erwin's pillow. Would Erwin ever stop being so embarrassing?

Reaching his arms up, Levi hugged Erwin's pillow to himself and tugged his legs up onto the bed. His pillow smelled so good—Erwin's Old Spice, a minty shampoo, a floral detergent, and just...Erwin. He nuzzled into it unabashedly, the scent taking over his drunken mind and pulling him further into the depths of drowsiness. There really was nothing like the feeling of sinking into bed after a long, arduous day—the relief unique and easily accepted.

Erwin settled his blankets over Levi, their warmth and heaviness comforting like a hug. He sat on the bed next to Levi, his body surrounded by Levi's curled-up frame. "I'll bring up some water for you and put it on the table here, okay?" Levi nodded, sleep starting to overtake him.

His face twitched when his bangs fell into his eyes from the motion. He felt Erwin's fingers at his temple, brushing his hair from his face with a touch so gentle it made Levi open his eyes to see if it was real and not a dream he had had too many times before. Erwin was there, corporeal and smiling down at him softly, his fingers tickling the shell of Levi's ear where he tucked his hair behind it.

"Do you need anything else?"

Erwin had already sat with him when he should've been supervising the party like he had been all night. He tried to cheer him up again with Sonny. He offered to carry him up the stairs like a fucking princess, he let him sleep in his bed. He tucked him in and took care of him. Should he ask for a goodnight kiss too?

It wasn't fair how much of a Prince Charming Erwin was; he needed to take his crown back from Hanji.

Prince... Prince Charming... That made Levi remember something.

"Go help Ciller...enda," he mumbled into the pillow, steadily losing his grasp on consciousness.

"Cillerenda?" Erwin asked with a small confused laugh. "I don't know what you're talking about, Levi. Get some sleep." He stroked his fingers through Levi's hair for a moment before he stood and pulled the covers more securely around him.

"Th'bitch with the missing shoe...y'know," Levi clarified, making Erwin pause in his retreat. "Beepbopboop...pum'kins turn into whores..." he trailed off, not even entirely sure if was still awake as he spoke.

"Horses," he corrected himself after a moment.

"Cinderella?" Erwin asked. "The mice turn into horses, not the pumpkins." Levi grunted angrily at Erwin and made him laugh again. "Yes, what about Cinderella?"

"Sh's downstairs. In the bathroom." Levi rolled over to his other side, facing away from Erwin in favor of the wall and taking his pillow with him. "Make 'er some...chicken nuggets."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are appreciated c:


	8. I'm Not Okay (I Promise)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long again, forgive me! I missed two weeks of writing being in the hospital. I've also lost a little confidence in this fic but I will push through! Fighto!
> 
> Thank you all for being patient with me, please enjoy this gay chapter <3

Levi woke without opening his eyes. He was still half-asleep, eyelids weighed down heavily and anchoring his dark lashes to the curve of his cheeks. 

He was warm, comfortable. But his head felt all wrong—his pulse thrumming against his temple and pressing against his skull like a balloon about to burst.

Tucking his face down into the sheets, he groaned against the pain in his head and pressed closer to the wall, seeking out the edge to nestle himself into. The heavy blanket over him shifted as he scooted closer and he readjusted to get comfortable until he felt a sensation he wasn't expecting.

A hand slid slowly up his back, palm brushing the naked skin under his T-shirt, fingers flexing to press lightly into the space between his shoulder blades. The fingers were lazy and warm, groping over his upper back before they dragged back down and a sigh left the chest Levi's face was pressed against. Levi was pulled closer to the other, the rough fingertips ticklish over the base of his spine until they touched the waistband of his underwear. Levi stiffened in fear when he had the fleeting memory of Nile's friend stroking a finger under his chin, cruelly teasing him with a heavy voice.

He jolted into wakefulness, his eyes wide as he slammed his fist into the body in front of him and wrestled himself free of the covers. His eyes darted around, confused as to where he was, his surroundings new and unfamiliar. The loud groan from behind him made him return his attention to his assailant.

It was just Erwin—face scrunched in discomfort and confusion, and an arm hugged around his middle against the pain of being woken by a hard punch to the gut. Levi pressed a hand to his face, his head spinning; the vision of Erwin in front of him grounded him and assured him that he hadn't really been spirited away by some asshole and done something that he would completely regret forever.

His bare legs shifted against one another, naked spare for the dark hair that covered them. Where the fuck were his pants? And his hoodie? He crossed an arm over himself, grabbing his elbow; he felt so much smaller without his sweatshirt to hide in.

" _Ow_ ," Erwin groaned exaggeratedly, starting to fully come to himself. 

"Why are you in bed with me?" Levi interrogated, staring down at Erwin with sharp grey eyes.

"Huh?" Erwin scrubbed a hand over his face and pushed his hair back. He sat up on one elbow and looked at Levi like he had only just realized they were indeed only half-dressed, and previously under the same covers. "I gave Hanji and Petra the futon, so I just...went to my own bed."

As if to confirm his explanation, Levi heard Hanji’s disembodied snoring from around the corner of the room. From the sound of it, they were sound-asleep, most likely with their mouth hanging wide open. Erwin dropped his voice to a whisper so he wouldn't wake the two on the other side of the room. "Was that not okay?"

Levi furrowed his brows and scrunched his eyes again. He looked back blearily at the nightstand to see what time it was. It was only 8:12am. He was probably still a little drunk, halfway between tipsy and a hangover.

"Don't...touch me like that." Erwin's eyes widened and he sat up fully.

"What did I do?"

Levi wasn't in the mood for anything. He felt sick and dizzy, and though he wanted the touch under other circumstances—though it was cruel—he felt like punishing Erwin. He didn't answer him, turning away and dropping his feet over the side of the bed.

"I didn't mean anything, I swear," Erwin apologized. "No weird stuff."

 _Don't you mean ‘no homo’?_ Levi thought bitterly and unnecessarily. He ran both his hands over his face and through his hair, all the way back to rest over his neck and grip it hard. With a pained sigh, he pressed his elbows together, covering his ears and squeezing his head between his arms in a protective vice. He felt useless and stupid for drinking again—for drinking so much. He felt like crying again.

"Are you alright?"

_Don't ask me that._

Levi felt Erwin shift behind him, the bed dipping and creaking slightly until he sat next to him on the edge of the bed. He stood up the second Erwin settled his weight, giving him no chance to say anything else. He flashed his eyes over to the door in the corner of the room.

"I'm going to go throw up," Levi stated bluntly—an excuse to not answer Erwin's question.

When he took his first step his knees buckled, but he righted himself and ignored any more remarks from Erwin as he made his way to the bathroom. He slammed the door behind him, noting the interrupted snort of Hanji's snoring. He’d probably woken up the two on the futon with the loud noise, but at the moment he couldn’t bring himself to care.

Erwin's bathroom was clean and everything of Levi's dreams. A tiled, glass-doored shower was set in the corner next to a huge bathtub that looked like it could easily fit two people. It was set into a smooth stone surface and had one of those waterfall faucets that Levi had only seen in the home-decorating catalogues at his nanna's house. The toilet was in a separate little room from the rest of the bathroom, but he didn't bother to go over to it.

He slumped down and sat on the cold tile floor, pressing his back against the the base of the tub and tucking his knees up against his chest. Wrapping his arms around his naked legs, he folded into himself tighter and pressed his eye sockets into his knees. The pressure took away from his headache, but it didn't take away how mad and ashamed he was of himself.

Levi almost fell asleep again, hugged tight against himself and making weak noises in the back of his throat when his head throbbed too hard. A soft knock on the door roused him, his eyelids twitching violently when he squeezed his eyes closed again.

"You okay in there?" Erwin asked through the door. "You've been in there for twenty minutes." Levi could hear movement and quiet chatter on the other side of the door, and felt even less like he wanted to answer when he knew that there were other people listening. He heard the bedroom door open and shut again, the room becoming quiet again with Petra and Hanji’s departure. "...Can I come in?"

"No," Levi croaked, his throat and mouth dry as a desert. He unfolded himself and went to one of the two sinks set into the marbleized counter, avoiding looking in the mirror at all costs. The cold water felt nice—relieving—as he splashed it over his face; he cupped his hand and slurped up a mouthful of water, letting it fall back into the sink from his open lips. He dried his face with his shirt and dropped it back down over his stomach as he opened the door to find Erwin dressed and waiting patiently for him on the futon.

Levi walked back to Erwin's bed and grabbed his pants from the floor. He shoved his legs back into them and stuffed his socks into his boots as Erwin came back around the corner and leaned against the wall to wait for him.

"Do you want some breakfast?"

"I'm going home," Levi said, taking refuge back inside his spacious hoodie and tucking his mouth into the edge.

Erwin held the door open for him wordlessly and he trudged down the stairs with his boots in his hand, the thick rubber soles smacking against one another with each heavy step. He opened the front door himself and walked out before Erwin could ask if he needed a ride home. He thought Erwin might try to make him stay, but he just let him go, telling him he'd see him at school and hoping he'd feel better.

 _'Feel better.' Yeah right,_ Levi thought.

He walked home barefoot, though the soles of his feet would be filthy by the time he reached his home. His heels scuffed against the pavement, almost welcoming the brief pain when his foot would roll over a stray pebble or twig.

_'That's what I thought, Grandma's Boy.'_

_'What happened to being sober for six months?'_

_'I really...like you, Erwin.'_

"Stupid," Levi said to himself. "Fucking stupid."

 

* * *

 

Levi didn't go to school come Monday. Or Tuesday. Or Wednesday. 

He skipped two full weeks, passing it off to his nanna and teachers like he had a bad case of the flu. Erwin messaged him every couple of days to ask how he was feeling but Levi stopped replying after the first two times.

He'd hardly eaten, he'd hardly slept; he'd hardly showered in those two weeks even though he was disgusted with himself for going more than a day without one. He didn't clean, either. He didn't go outside. He didn't go for any runs. He only got up from the couch or the white rug on the floor to use the bathroom and that was about it.

This wasn't rock bottom, though. He had been far worse before, but he was still in a rut and he didn't know how to get out of it—or even care to really try.

Erwin had messaged him the first week, asking if it was his fault, if he had done something wrong. Levi just said 'no' and left it at that.

It wasn't Erwin's fault at all. It was Levi's. He knew he shouldn't have gone to that stupid party—and he really wouldn't have if he knew it was going to affect him like this. It was his fault for drinking at the party. It was his fault for giving Nile reasons to fight with him. It was his fault for all drinking and fighting in the past. It was his fault.

His birthday was coming in about a month—seventeen. Why did seventeen sound so young, but Levi felt so fucking old? No seventeen-year-old should feel like he did, in his opinion. He had a home, he had food, he had some money, he had his art. He had his nanna. He had Erwin. He didn't feel like he had any valid reason to be so depressed, but that was how he felt anyways.

Levi turned over on the couch from his side to his back and stared at the ceiling. He twisted slightly, side to side, stretching out his back and neck that were sore and aching from laying down for so many days on end.

His arms raised toward the ceiling and hovered there as if manipulated and suspended by the invisible strings of a puppeteer. Levi let them dangle there uselessly, watching his fingers as he moved them, following the swirling, complex pattern of the ink that reached from his fingertips to his elbows.

Boredom had struck him—surprisingly an event that hadn't happened much during his two-week ceiling-staring adventure. Designs like tribal tattoos stood out starkly against his pale skin from the ink of the black sharpie he had used. Lines, dots, curves, swirls.

His nails were painted black, the shiny lacquer's luster long-since faded and the edges starting to chip away. The ink had rubbed off from his palms and in the ditches of his elbows, smudged and messy. He didn't bother to fix any of it.

A familiar harsh buzzing interrupted the silence of his dark house—plastic and circuitry rattling over hardwood flooring. The sound annoyed him, worsening his already terrible headache and drowning out the rush of steady rain that came down in sheets outside.

His arms flopped heavily onto his chest—marionette strings severed—and he reached his hand down over the side of the couch to blindly grab at his phone that was making its way further under the coffee table with each round of vibration. His nanna had called him three times that day already. Couldn't she just leave him alone for once?

He turned onto his side again and flipped his phone open, letting it rest on the side of his face so he wouldn't have to expend the energy to hold it to his ear. "I'm fine, Nanna," Levi droned in a tired, monotonous voice. "I'll go back to school on Monday, I'll try to eat something, I'll get up once in awhile, I'll sleep at a normal time. You don't have to keep calling me every hour to check if I'm still alive."

The moment of silence on the other end made Levi think that the call had been dropped due to the storm, but instead of his nanna's slightly raspy, light-hearted voice he heard a different one—deeper and smoother.

" _Hi, Levi_."

Levi grunted quietly to himself and closed his eyes. He wished he hadn't said anything before he had confirmed who was on the other end of the line.

"...Hi."

" _Still not feeling too good, I'm guessing?_ " Erwin asked him kindly.

"Nope."

A silence stretched between them again and Levi felt himself starting to nod off, his cheek pressed into the fabric of the couch, until a rumble of thunder brought him back.

According to the weather channel, there would be heavy thunderstorms for the next few days; that wouldn't have bothered him except for the fact that it made his headache worse with each crash of lightning and boom of thunder. If he had the will to get up, he would get something from his medicine cabinet to calm the throbbing in his head, but the couch sucked him in and kept him glued in place.

"Was that all?"

" _No, ah... You don't really have the flu, do you? Not that I'm saying you're not sick, I just wanted to know if you were contagious._ "

Levi frowned and pressed his cheek harder into the couch, squishing his face. To anyone else, he could have the flu. But Erwin knew better.

"I'm not."

" _That's good_ ," Erwin replied. Levi could see the small reassured smile in his mind at the slightest uplift in Erwin's tone. " _Then would it be alright if I came over?_ "

Levi opened his eyes slowly. "Why?"

" _I haven't seen you in two weeks_." Levi's heart stuttered. That was almost an 'I miss you,' if Levi let himself believe it. " _Also...I suppose, according to you, you haven't eaten, slept, or gotten up. So I should check on you to see if you're still alive, shouldn't I?_ " he asked with a tentatively playful chuckle.

"Smartass."

Erwin laughed at that and Levi smiled the faintest bit. It was nice to hear Erwin's voice, his laughter, his concern.

"I thought you were going to be too busy with football until Winter Break?" Levi asked skeptically. _That's what you told me._

 _"Well...like I had anticipated, we didn't quite make playoffs,"_ Erwin replied. " _I don't have any more games to worry about right now. Homework isn't too important or urgent. I want to see you._ "

Levi flushed red at those words and scoffed at him, the sound a sharp hiss through his teeth. He was quiet again. He didn't know what to say. Why exactly _did_ Erwin want to see him? To see if he was okay? To hang out with him? Just because?

" _If you'll have me over, I'll make you something to eat,_ " Erwin persuaded.

"What are you going to make me?" Levi asked, challenging him.

" _What do you want?_ "

Levi thought for a moment. "Waffles." It didn't come out sounding like a request—more like a demand.

" _Do you have stuff for waffles?_ "

"No."

Levi could tell Erwin was playing a little game with him. Getting him to talk. Trying to get him to lighten up.

" _Well I'll have to bring that, then._ "

"Hn," Levi grumbled.

"... _So, would that be alright?_ "

A heavy sigh left Levi as he adjusted his phone so it wouldn't fall from his face. "...I guess."

" _I'll head over soon?_ "

"Sure."

" _Alright. See you._ "

"Yeah."

Levi left his phone on his face for a few more minutes after the phone call had ended. When he pulled his phone away it was smudged and greasy with the oil from his skin. He rubbed the screen into his shirt at his shoulder to clean it before snapping it shut and dropping it back on the table.

He probably looked disgusting and he couldn't remember the last time he had showered, but at the moment he couldn't care less—even with Erwin coming over. Well, he did care a little bit. He thought he'd do Erwin a favor and brush his teeth before he came so at least his breath wouldn't repel him.

It took him a moment to stand, moving slowly so he wouldn't make himself lightheaded or give himself tunnel vision. His trip down the short hall was sluggish and his toothbrushing was lazy but sufficient enough to pass his current standards. Taking one of his acne cleansing pads, he scrubbed it carelessly over his face, ridding it of oil and hissing when the solution on it got into his eye. Remembering his earlier sentiment, he popped a few ibuprofen in his mouth and swallowed dryly, hoping it would dampen his headache and the pain in his eye.

Meeting his gaze in the mirror, Levi stared at himself. His eyes looked beyond tired, their color quite dull, especially the one that was now red and bloodshot. His face was a bit thinner, his eyelids heavier, his dark circles darker. He had the faintest bit of stubble that prickled his fingertips when he swept them across his jaw. His hair looked a bit limp, but when he touched it he was relieved that it wasn't as oily as he thought it'd be.

Levi didn't really feel like he was looking at himself. His reflection wasn't quite a stranger, but it didn't entirely feel like it was truly him either.

He smiled at the mirror, the muscles in his lips quivering against the expression and his cheeks dipping in to reveal the dimples that no one ever got to see. It looked so unnatural to him. Plastic and fake. A mask. The emotion wasn't real, the happiness behind it fabricated and disconnected. His face fell slack again, sullen and tired.

"Let's not do that again," Levi advised his reflection. It agreed with him, disappearing when Levi flipped off the lights and left the bathroom to go lay back down on the couch and wait for whenever Erwin would come.

 

* * *

 

Levi had moved from the couch to the rug (an amazing feat) in the hour that passed while Erwin still hadn't arrived. It occurred to Levi after another thirty minutes that he didn't know where Erwin was calling from when they had spoken, so there really was no telling how long he would take. 

His eyes closed again as he listened to his music playing from the speakers above him, whisper-quiet under the pounding of the rain against the roof. Levi wondered if it was possible for the roof to cave in, unable to hold up against the onslaught of the storm. He thought he could hear the rain speaking on the other side of wood and insulation—hushed jeers that promised to sweep Levi away with its strength, taunting him with claps of thunder and bright flashes of light.

The voices left when there was a soft knock on the door. The knock grew louder, more firm and insistent to make sure that Levi heard it after another deep rumble of thunder.

Dragging his body upright, Levi stood and made his way to the door. He worried about his appearance for less than a second before he grabbed the doorknob and turned it—Erwin had already seen him in a T-shirt and underwear before, why would he care if that was the case again?

Erwin greeted him with a relieved smile, apparently glad to know that Levi was indeed alive and breathing even though he looked like utter shit. Erwin’s hair was plastered to his forehead and his clothes were stained dark with water just from the few seconds it took to get from his car to the porch.

"How are you?" Erwin asked breathlessly and shivered, a gust of winter wind beating against him as he stood outside in the freezing cold, soaked to the bone. He adjusted the tote bag he had over his shoulder, a metal handle peeking out of the top of it.

Levi looked at Erwin like he was a complete idiot and dryly replied, "Just peachy."

He left the door open for Erwin to come inside and strode slowly into the kitchen to get himself a glass of water. Seeing the rain pouring down outside and pooling in the street reminded him of how he hadn't even drank anything that day, let alone eaten.

"Do you want anything to drink?" Levi called back at him, his own voice sounding as thin and starched as paper. He drank the glass like he hadn't tasted water in years, gulping it down almost ravenously before setting it back down on the counter.

"No, I'm okay," Erwin replied, the door shutting with a click and muffling the storm again. "I took Eren inside, if that's okay. He was getting pretty wet out there."

 _Eren_?

"Who the _fuck_ is Eren?" Levi asked, completely at a loss for what the hell Erwin was talking about as he peered back into the living room.

Erwin blinked at him, his arms full of damp, tawny and black striped fur. "...Is this not your cat?"

Levi stared at them, dumbfounded. "No, that's not my fucking cat," Levi groused when Eren leapt from Erwin's arms to the floor and shook himself, spraying water all over the entryway.

"Oh..." Erwin laughed awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. "The tags said 'Ackerman,' so I just assumed..."

"He belongs to the family that lives behind me," Levi explained, watching the cat with narrowed eyes as it wound between Erwin's legs, rubbing up against his sweatpants and trying to take more attention for himself. Levi frowned. "...How the hell did you pick that little shit up? He won't even let me pet him."

"Really? He's really friendly with me," Erwin replied as he set down his bag and stripped off his jacket. He scrubbed his hair a little drier with the inside of it and looked around for a place to put it, turning to Levi for help when he came up short.

"Put your shit wherever, I don't care," Levi grumbled, sitting so heavily back down on the white rug in the corner that the floor shook, startling Eren into hiding under the table. "...Take your shoes off," he added.

"What have you been doing for the last couple of weeks?" Erwin asked as he draped his wet jacket on the knob of the hall closet and toed his soggy shoes off to sit them next to the neat line of Levi's at the door.

Levi flopped backwards and reacquainted himself with the ceiling. His arms and legs spread out haphazardly, taking up the entire space of the rug—a disheveled grumpy starfish sprawled in the corner of the living room.

"This."

Erwin coaxed Eren out from under the table and picked him up again, scratching under his chin and making him purr. Levi glared at them both and Erwin chuckled, sitting down on the floor next to Levi and his Existential Crisis Rug.

"Maybe he doesn't let you pet him because you're always scowling at him like that." He let go of the cat and it wandered the space between the two boys. "Act like you want to be his friend, and maybe he'll actually be your friend."

Levi let his face relax with a quiet scoff and closed his eyes again, stretching his arms above him and arching his back until it popped. He didn't expect another chuckle from Erwin, but the sound broke the silence again and Levi opened his eyes to see why the bastard was laughing at him. Eren was stretched out exaggeratedly next to him, opening his mouth wide in a silent roar of a yawn; his tiger stripes made him look like a tiny, fierce version of his larger counterpart. The cat relaxed back after his long stretch and flopped over to lay against Erwin's crossed legs.

"You're just like a cat," Erwin remarked fondly.

Levi went limp again, not bothering to fix his shirt that had ridden halfway up his stomach from his own stretch. "If I get to sleep all day and get head massages, I'm fine with being a shitty cat," Levi muttered, jealously watching Erwin scratch Eren behind the ears again. What did Levi have to do to get the same attention?

"Grumpy cats don't get pets," Erwin replied, reaching a hand to Levi's bare stomach. He aborted his motion, his hand jerking back awkwardly and a frown twitching the muscles in face before it disappeared without a trace.

"What the hell was that?" Levi asked, with another little scoff.

"Don't worry about it," Erwin replied, clearing his throat and going back to petting Eren.

Levi narrowed his eyes. "Spit it out, dumbass."

"It’s stupid… I was going to poke you, but I almost forgot you don't...want me to touch you?" The sentence was more of a question than an answer, but it made Levi frown at himself and pull his shirt back down to hide his belly button from view. "I kind of touch you a lot," Erwin admitted quietly as Eren brushed his chin over his hand, asking for more scratches.

Levi flushed but he shook his head at Erwin. "I don't mind...really..." That sounded stupid; he might as well have said, 'You've got it all all wrong, jackass. Keep touching me, I'm desperate for it.'

"You don't mind," Erwin repeated, "but you socked me in the stomach and told me not to."

"Well how would you feel, waking up somewhere you don't remember falling asleep at and being smothered by someone who wasn't there before?" Levi retorted, his face burning.

"That's a valid point."

"If I'm being felt up by a goddamn mystery hand I'm sure as hell going to sock the person it's attached to in the stomach."

It was Erwin's turn to flush pink, his lips twitching as he tried to think of a reply to that. Levi smirked in his head. He liked flustering Erwin—it didn't happen too often.

"F...felt up?" 

"Your pervert hand was up my shirt feeling and groping around. And you made this noise...' _Ahhhnh,_ '" Levi imitated, over-exaggerating the sound and smirking for real when Erwin paled at his words. "Were you dreaming about some girl or something?"

It hurt a little to ask that.  _Was_ he thinking about a girl, or just reacting to having a body next to his? He figured Erwin would be imagining someone and it made Levi feel a twinge of jealousy that it wouldn't be him that he was thinking about.

Erwin cleared his throat again and stood up; Eren meowed and chattered loudly at him in protest as he fell from his lap to the floor. "How about those waffles?" Erwin asked, trying to change the subject.

"What? Getting embarrassed now?" Levi called after him. Good. He should be embarrassed for doing embarrassing things. "Didn't know you get all touchy-feely when you sleep?"

Erwin grabbed his bag on his way to the kitchen, turning to counter Levi's comment with a purse of his lips and a remark of his own. "At least I don't bite people when I'm drunk."

Levi scoffed at him. "I don't bite people when I'm drunk."

"The teeth marks that were on my neck for two days beg to differ. Hanji was _awfully_ curious about them."

Levi's confidence dissipated faster than water evaporating on the surface of the sun. He bit his fucking _neck?_ Why didn't he remember doing that? What the hell was he, a drunk, gay vampire?

"What do you want on your waffles?" Erwin asked nonchalantly. How could he be so casual about the whole thing? Levi _bit his fucking neck._ Levi smacked his palm into his forehead, accentuating each word of his mental chant, ' _Stupid. Stupid. Gay. Stupid. Gay._ '

"Strawberries," Levi answered between beating the gay out of his brain and failing miserably.

He dropped his hand away from his sore forehead when Erwin appeared in the doorway, leaning there and presumably waiting for the stove to heat up before he continued on with his waffle making. "Do you live here by yourself?"

Grimacing, Levi looked away from him. He leaned his head back far enough to avoid even seeing him out of his peripherals. It was a little obvious if he thought about it; it was clear that there weren't anyone else's belongings besides his own lying around the small house.

"Yes." The word was quiet, bitter, ashamed.

"Do you have any family around here?"

"My nanna lives on the edge of the north side of the city," Levi replied. He didn't know what compelled him to, but he kept talking. "Mom's dead. Dad's a piece of shit and lost custody of me a long time ago. Uncle doesn't give a damn about me." He was waiting for Erwin to pity him, to say something consoling like people do when they don't know what else to say.

"Is your nanna nice?" he asked instead, focusing on the one not-completely-negative thing that had come from Levi's mouth.

"Yeah, she's great," Levi replied honestly, though his words were slow and quiet. "This is her house, but she's got too many obligations where we used to live to leave there. So I guess I'm stuck here on my own."

"Doesn't it get lonely being here by yourself all the time?"

"I don't know. It's my place, so why would I be lonely? No place like home, right?" Levi said to the ceiling. He looked back over at Erwin and received that warm smile directed at him again. There wasn't any pity, there wasn't any judgement. There might have been a little bit of concern, but it wasn't overbearing like it could tend to be.

Erwin went back into the kitchen, rustling things out of his bag and being noisy while he cooked, like always. Eren sauntered over to Levi's face, hunching down into a crouch and reaching out a curious paw to play with Levi's hair that was splayed every which-way on the floor. " _Tss!_ " Levi scolded, flinching when Eren jumped upright at the sound, scared the dumb brat might attack him and scratch his damn face off.

"Should be like ten minutes," Erwin said as he sat back down next to Levi, watching the cat skirt around his face. Erwin was honestly like a cat himself, with how quietly he had slipped back into the living room.

"Hn," Levi replied, tilting his head back further and meeting Eren's bright green eyes from his upside-down position. Eren got close, sniffing at Levi's forehead and probably trying to decide if he was really friendly or not. Levi closed his eye when the little huffy breaths fanned over it before moving on to another spot. A tiny, cold nose met Levi's and Erwin couldn't suppress a little ' _aww_ ' at the eskimo kiss. The corners of Levi's mouth twitched up. It was kind of cute, he had to admit...

Eren pulled a strange face then, one Levi had never seen a cat make before; it was scrunched and contorted like Levi was the worst thing he had ever smelled in his short, feline life. Levi's face fell when he realized why Eren was making that face and before he could react, Eren spasmed and sprayed a loud sneeze right in Levi's face.

" _Ugghh!_ " Levi yelled, frozen in place with a stunned, disgusted expression on his face as Erwin laughed his ass off, loud and bellowing. "My _mouth_ was _open!_ "

He punched Erwin in the thigh for laughing at him and scrubbed his T-shirt over his face roughly to rid it of the stupid cat germs. "He's not staying here all night," Levi retorted at Erwin, as if he had some sort of say in the matter. "I don't want him scratching anything or shitting in my house."

"With the weather outside?"

"I don't care. He was out there to begin with. _You_ were the one who brought him in here."

Eren interjected with his own chattering at Levi, who just gave him a repulsed look.

"The hell do you want?" Levi asked as the cat stepped purposefully up onto his stomach. He could feel the weight of the cat bearing down on those little paws and he flexed his abs so it wouldn't feel so much like his insides were being squashed. "Get off of me," Levi snapped.

The cat ignored Levi and moved up to his chest, kneading his shirt for a moment before settling himself down with his paws tucked under his body like a little loaf of cat bread. He rested his chin on Levi's sternum and blinked lazily at him.

"He's giving you the puppy eyes," Erwin laughed. "Or I guess I should say 'kitten eyes.'"

"It's not going to work," Levi stated blandly.

Erwin pouted playfully at him and Levi gave him an exasperated roll of his eyes and looked away. He tucked his chin to his chest to meet the big, gleaming eyes staring at him. "Fine, you can stay in the garage. Manipulative little brat." Though he insulted him, he reached up and scratched Eren behind the ears, finally getting to pet the stupid thing. "You, too," he said with a pointed look in Erwin's direction.

"I'm a manipulative little brat? Or I have to stay in the garage?"

"Both."

Eren purred loudly as Levi scratched under his chin, the sound vibrating through Levi's ribs in a strange way that made it feel like his whole body was being tickled. "I told you he's friendly," Erwin said matter-of-factly.

"Are we just going to sit here and pet a dumb cat all night?" Levi asked, not really searching for an answer to that question. His voice was getting tired again. This was the most he had talked in the two weeks he had been home, and his fatigue was starting to show when his oppressive thoughts started to creep up on him again.

What would it be like if he lived like this...with Erwin, with a cat that was like their tiny, furry child? Erwin would obviously the encouraging parent, the kind one. Levi would be the no-nonsense parent that didn't take any shit from a back-sassing, chatty cat.

What would it be like to come home everyday and have someone there waiting for him?

_Doesn't it get lonely?_

Levi frowned and sat up until Eren got off of him. It felt more lonely when Eren and Erwin were there. It just meant that they had to eventually leave, for however long. It could be a short time, or a long one. They could never come back.

When he was by himself he didn't have to worry about being lonely. There wasn't anyone to leave him when there was no one there in the first place.

"What's wrong?" Erwin asked him, concern pulling at his brows again.

"Nothing," Levi dismissed quietly, bending up his knees and resting his crossed arms on them. He folded further into a ball and rested his chin on his arms, focusing his attention on the storm outside and his music still playing behind him. He flicked his eyes to Erwin when he felt a finger gently stroke over one of the black lines on his arm.

"That's cool," Erwin commented, trying to pull Levi's attention to something other than his thoughts. Levi shrugged. "Did you do that freehand?" Levi leaned his head to the side to rest his cheek on his arm so he could look at Erwin and nod his reply. "Want to draw on me too?"

Levi laughed a little. "You always want me to draw stuff for you."

"That's because I like what you do," he said, nudging Levi's shoulder.

"I killed the Sharpie drawing on myself, so the closest you'll get to this," Levi said, moving his arms to display them in front of his face, "is just painting your nails black."

His comment was dismissive but Erwin just smiled and said, "Okay."

Levi cocked an eyebrow at him. "You really want me to paint your nails? Like we're at a fucking girl's slumber party?"

Erwin shrugged. "Why not?"

He stared at him for another minute before relenting with a, "Whatever." He told Erwin to grab the polish for him, which was still sitting on the small table beside the couch where he had left it days ago after painting his own nails. Snatching the bottle from Erwin's hand, he rolled it between his palms, mixing it and trying not to make those annoying, tiny air bubbles appear.

They sat cross-legged in front of each other, their knees touching. The way Erwin was sitting pulled his sweatpants tighter over his legs, his muscled calves making Levi's look so weak by comparison, though he knew they weren't. Levi went running often enough that he knew he wasn't weak; his muscles were lean instead of bulky, so his strength wasn't as blatantly apparent as a football jock's.

Levi examined Erwin's nails and deemed it okay to proceed when he saw that they were relatively clean and looked like they had been trimmed not too long ago. He kept one leg where it was but bent up the other to use his knee as a makeshift table, his foot planted firmly on the ground. He took Erwin's hand and put it on his knee while he wrestled the sticking cap off of the bottle of polish.

Setting the bottle on the floor next to him, he dunked the brush into the polish and carefully wiped the excess on the lip of the bottle. He took Erwin's hand back in his, a commoner about to kiss his Majesty's bejeweled fingers. Erwin twisted his hand around in Levi's grasp and pressed his palm to Levi's, splaying his fingers out playfully and pulling Levi's with his.

Like Levi had thought, Erwin could bend the tips of his fingers over his easily. His palm was large and warm, Levi's own starting to sweat when he thought about those hands being on the naked skin of his back again. He snatched Erwin's hand back and grabbed his pinky finger roughly, pinching it between his fingers to hold it still and prevent it from misbehaving while he painted the nail with precise strokes.

Erwin's nails were broad and flat, easy to work with; they weren't so small or curved that it made it difficult to get a clean line. Erwin sat patiently as one by one, his nails were painted a pitch, shining black like the hard shell of a beetle.

"I feel so hardcore now," Erwin joked, making Levi snort at him in reply. He finished with Erwin's thumb and one hand was complete.

"Don't touch anything until that dries," he warned, taking Erwin's other hand and propping it on his knee to set to work on it.

They were both quiet again until another song came on and Levi commented quietly, "I love this one."

"What's it called?"

The song was perfect for the weather and his mood, to be quite honest. Relaxing and calm. "'Nocturne Rain Song,'" Levi answered, moving from Erwin's pinky to his ring finger.

"It sounds really cool already," Erwin commented about the reverberating, delicate sounds that mimicked a gentle rain. He turned his free hand gently side to side, up and down, studying the way the dim light of the living room bounced off his lacquered nails. "We should share music sometime. I have some bands that you might like, if you don't already know them."

Levi nodded, concentrating on painting Erwin's nails and the song in the background. He sang along like he always did, quiet and under his breath, even though Erwin would be able to clearly hear him.

" _Ame ga furidasu to doko kara ka oritekite. Konya mo himitsu no doa wo tataku_ ," he mumbled along with the quiet, dragging of the syllables. " _Marude kage no idou kizuita_ —"

"Is this Japanese?" Erwin asked, throwing Levi off and making him click his tongue at him. He hated when people interrupted a good song. He moved from Erwin's middle to his index finger.

"Yeah."

"Do you speak it?"

"No, not really," Levi answered. "I'm a quarter Japanese on my mom's side and I lived in Japan for a year with my nanna when I was younger, so I picked up a lot. But I lost it from not using it after we came back here." He moved to the last finger, finishing his project without a mess up, bubble, or smudge. "I can still sort of translate if I hear it. But I can't reply for shit aside from the basics."

"I get you," Erwin replied. "I'm the same way with German. Come family holidays, all the old relatives are chatting in German and they ask me stuff and prattle on and on. And I just smile and nod because I can't really say anything back. And then they scold me if I reply in English. ' _Auf Deutsch!'_ " Erwin mimicked in an wobbly old person voice, shaking his fist.

Levi snickered and continued on, suddenly in the mood to talk for once. "I saw this band live while I was there. If you thought I was bad at school with people in the halls, you should have seen thirteen-year-old me by myself in that fucking crowd."

Levi sighed as he reminisced. God, his fashion sense was terrible back then. His visual kei phase was not a pretty one, though his thirteen-year-old self tried his damnedest.

"They were one of my favorite bands when I was younger, and the singer's voice is still one of my favorites." He left out the part where he had a giant crush on the singer and still kind of did. " _I've never been so attracted to a pair of hands in my goddamn life_ ," Levi muttered to himself.

"What?" Erwin laughed.

Fuck, did he really say that out loud? Levi cleared his throat and continued on as if he hadn't said something so completely homosexual about a Japanese man that was probably twice his age.

"They were amazing, though, so the concert was worth the crowd. Aside from the screaming girls."

"Did you scream with them?" Erwin teased, giving him a knowing smile.

" _No_."

Yes...

A little thrill swelled in Levi's chest. He'd never talked about stuff like this with other people. The words fell easily from his lips and he kept talking about it more than he needed to, but when his words were directed at Erwin he didn't feel weird about it. It was about as close to gushing about something that he got.

"Done," he concluded, giving Erwin his hand back. "The other one should be dry by now." Erwin tapped the pad of his thumb onto his dry, painted nails. "But you still shouldn't touch it for a while," he scolded, smacking Erwin's hand lightly to get him to stop in case he smeared it.

A high-pitched beeping pierced through the air like a sonic beesting, startling Levi so badly that he swore he felt his heart stop beating for a few seconds. He covered his ears against the screeching noise. "What the hel—"

" _Fuck!_ " Erwin shouted, scrambling up and dashing into the kitchen—faster than he moved on the football field—to where grey smoke was seeping out into the hallway to crawl along the ceiling. Levi's eyes widened and he ran in after Erwin, watching him grab the hot handle of the waffle iron to set on another burner and cursing when it burned his hand. He opened the iron and thick plumes of smoke billowed out, though thankfully there was no fire to cause any real danger.

Levi cracked open the window above the sink to let the room air out, not caring that the rain from outside was splattering up onto the sill.

"Are you trying to burn my fucking house down?!" Levi shouted over the still-blaring smoke alarm. He fanned smoke towards the window and started to climb up the counter to turn the alarm off but Erwin beat him to it; he reached it easily, hitting the button while barely lifting his heels from the floor. Erwin apologized profusely as he continued to wave away the smoke in the air.

" _You_ can eat the first waffle," Levi offered as punishment when he looked back at the charred remains of Hello Kitty's waffle face sitting on the stove. He blinked at it. "Erwin, why do you have a Hello Kitty waffle iron?" he asked calmly, as if he was simply asking the time.

"Mike got it for me for my birthday. He thinks he's funny," Erwin laughed as he continued waving his hands through the air. "It is kind of funny… But a waffle's a waffle. The shape doesn't matter, I'm going to stuff it in my face anyways."

He looked at he sad, burnt waffle in the iron as he scraped it into its trash can grave. "Not...this one, though."

Birthday… Levi’s mind stuck with that word.

"When's your birthday? Is it coming up?" Levi started to frantically wrack his brain. He'd never gotten anything for anyone's birthday besides his nanna. Should he get something for Erwin? Would he even like it?

"No, it was in October."

"Oh..." Great, he fucked that one up, too.

"I don't make a big deal out of birthdays, so don't worry about it," he reassured. Levi nodded and stared at the last remnants of the smoke seeping out through the window, almost in a daze.

Smoke lazily creeping along the ceiling. Flames curling up angrily. The stifling air, the smell of burning. His step-mother yelling at his drunk father to wake up and do something. The coolness of the front lawn’s grass between his toes as he watched the flames lick up the side of the house from the open kitchen window.

"You okay?"

Levi looked back over at him, intent on asking what he meant, but realized just how erratically he was breathing. He took calmer breaths, in and out, steadying his lungs and his nerves.

"Yeah. I..." he trailed off. The thoughts and memories pressed down on him again, trying with all their might to crush him under their unbearable weight. "Nevermind. It just made me think of another kitchen fire. When I was younger."

He neglected to tell Erwin that it was in his house. And that he had started it.

It was easy for an nine-year-old boy to blame his inebriated father for leaving the stove on when the whole block knew how belligerently drunk he always was. He still wished somewhere in the back of his mind that no one had been called to put that fire out.

He could feel his face pinch in severe discomfort so he put a hand to his eyes, closing them and grimacing into his palm. Why did his thoughts always have to be so violent? What the fuck was wrong with him?

"Goddammit," Erwin berated himself with a frown of his own. Levi looked up at him questioningly, his eyes tired again. "I keep doing things that make you upset."

Levi's frown deepened and shook his head. "It's not your fault. It's not like you burned the damn waffle on purpose."

"I know, but it's not just that. There's so many other little th—"

" _Jesus Christ, Erwin!_ " Levi exploded suddenly, shouting and gesturing angrily with his arms. "Stop blaming yourself for fucking everything! You do that all the fucking time! I have a lot of issues, okay? You can't make all of them better, but you don't cause any of them either! Lots of fucking people make me upset, but _you_ don't. So stop saying you do. Just because I get like this, doesn't mean it's your fault. You being here is doing me more good than bad, Erwin. I _need_ you here." His voice broke at the end and he sucked in a lungful of air.

When he registered all of what he had just said he scoffed loudly at himself, avoiding looking Erwin in the eye and out of breath from his sudden speech. He put his head in his hands and dug his fingers into his scalp. Why did he always have to run his mouth and speak without thinking? Why? _Why, why, why?_

Erwin was silent for a moment, a loud boom of thunder and a flash of lightning strengthening the thick cord of tension between them before he replied with a quiet, "Okay, Levi."

Levi inhaled sharply, not even realizing he had been holding his breath. He nodded at him, still not quite looking at Erwin as he went back to making the waffles. This time he made sure they set a timer.

 

* * *

 

They had cooked and eaten their waffles in silence in the kitchen, overly cautious not to burn even a single edge. They were delicious, though Levi had been struck with morbid fascination at the way his strawberry jam leaked out of the side of Hello Kitty's half-eaten head.

They had made a makeshift towel-bed for Eren and put him in the garage, along with some food and water. The side door was cracked open for him in case he wanted to leave and go back to his actual family.

Erwin and Levi were now laying on the white rug in the living room, side by side. Erwin didn't quite fit, his feet dangling off the end where he rocked his heels back and forth over the hardwood flooring.

They were listening to HIM, one of Levi's favorite bands—their symbol printed onto and fading from the hoodie that he constantly wore. The album they were listening to was a remix album, _Uneasy Listening, Vol. 1,_ but most of the songs were relaxing and slow more than anything else. Levi hummed along with his eyes closed, Erwin's quiet warmth next to him.

" _Here we are just like before. Waiting for sweet love with open arms. Here we are waiting for the warmth of that tender storm,_ " Levi sang quietly, drawing out the words forever, mimicking the singer. " _Love is insane, baby. And we are, too._ " He trailed off, finally feeling calm and tired enough to actually fall asleep for once that week.

_It's our heart's little graveyard. It's the salt in our wounds._

Levi felt the faintest brush against his pinky finger, making him open his eyes—more alert. He thought for a moment that Eren might have snuck back into the house somehow, but he wasn't anywhere Levi could see. He closed his eyes again until he felt it again and looked down at his hand.

Erwin's finger brushed up against his, visible in the darkness by the gleam of his freshly painted nails that matched Levi's dull and chipped ones. His finger snuck underneath Levi's, their fingers hooking together when they settled.

Levi's heart beat a little harder and he looked up to Erwin's face. His eyes were closed and his face was calm, taken by the song like Levi had been. He flicked his gaze back down to their hands when another finger nudged under his.

Swallowing his nerves, Levi started to slowly shift his hand further over Erwin's. Their fingers crept and crawled over one another, brushing and nudging—a strange, tentative dance. The hand under Levi's turned over, his palm an offering. Their fingers straightened and spread out, hands pressed together like before when they had compared their sizes.

Though it was just their hands touching, Levi felt an unfamiliar but not unwelcome sensation. It was a heavy blanket of calm, almost smothering him at first, but he found that he liked it—the simplest of physical comforts that Levi had never experienced before.

He thought for a moment that maybe physical comfort was all he ever needed. He didn't like to talk much about himself, but just being next to Erwin made him feel infinite times better than talking ever had. And he wanted more, greedy from the first taste.

Levi shifted his hand slightly to one side, his slim fingers falling easily into the gaps between Erwin's. They stayed like that until Levi started to curl his fingers over and Erwin mirrored the action in kind, locking their hands together and rubbing his thumb along Levi's.

The breath that left Levi sounded almost sad—one that would accompany a sob of relief had he given the air any sound to carry with it. Erwin squeezed his hand a little tighter and when he spoke it was soft and gentle, a contrast to the storm that still raged outside, throwing a tantrum against the roof of the house. "Things will get better for you," Erwin promised. "Trust me, they will."

Levi looked up at Erwin again and those unsettlingly blue eyes were staring right into him. Their faces were closer than he thought they had been before and the urge to kiss Erwin overwhelmed Levi again—a strange nervous tension pressing down on his chest.

He couldn't do it, though. He didn't know what Erwin would think. He wasn't drunk; there wasn't an excuse this time. He didn't want to mess this moment up and lose it—whatever it was, whatever it meant.

He leaned his head forward and bumped his forehead lightly into Erwin's, their noses brushing together. Looking down through his lashes, he could see Erwin's small smile, so close up. It was so close. He watched those lips, breath caught in his lungs, afraid to even breathe on Erwin's face.

"You'll be okay," Erwin whispered. He tilted his head back up from Levi's, their faces too close together. Their lips ghosted past each other, barely touching.

Levi's top lip caught Erwin's bottom one, forcing a hitch in both of their breaths—an accident, a wonderful accident.

Erwin froze. All Levi had to do was lean in and press their lips together—but he flinched away, embarrassed, and pressed his forehead to Erwin's shoulder instead. He pulled his hand from Erwin's, damp and nervously sweaty, and wiped it on his boxers.

"Sorry." His apology was quiet and breathless, muffled by the fabric of Erwin's shirt. He turned away with flushed cheeks to pull his blanket from the couch and drape it over them both, the cold of the stormy late night finally catching up to them.

"It's okay," Erwin said back to him—almost as quiet, almost as breathless—and pulled his feet up under the blanket where Levi had laid it over them.

Wiping his hand on his boxers once more, he slipped his hand back into Erwin's where it was still there waiting for him. Erwin moved closer until their sides were pressed together under the warmth of the blanket. They leaned into each other, Levi coming to rest with his head on Erwin's shoulder, and Erwin's head comfortably over Levi's.

Levi pressed his nose back into Erwin's shirt. He smelled strangely good. Erwin always smelled good—intoxicatingly so—but this heady scent was different. It was a combination Levi never would've put together. 

"You smell like waffle smoke," Levi commented fondly, smiling a little under the safety of the blanket when he heard Erwin's familiar chuckle and felt another squeeze to his hand. Levi squeezed back, falling asleep to the sound of Erwin breathing next to him and the soft brush of Erwin's thumb against his own.

 

* * *

 

Later in the night, when Erwin pulled his hand from Levi's to turn onto his side, Levi let him. 

When Levi turned onto his side and Erwin curled up further under the blanket to press his chest to Levi's back, Levi let him.

When Erwin slid an arm around Levi's middle and hugged him closer, Levi let him.

When Erwin stroked a hand down Levi's inked arm and twined their fingers together again, Levi let him.

He felt Erwin's nose press into the back of his head, his arm squeezing a little tighter around him. His sweatpants warmed the bare backs of his thighs.

"You'll be okay," Erwin whispered again, his breath fanning out over Levi's nape and making him shiver. Levi took their connected hands and pulled them up to his chest, his heartbeat calmer than it'd ever been. He sighed out a tired breath, surrounded by a protective warmth. Surrounded by Erwin.

_I'll be okay._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gOD JUST KISS ALREADY


	9. Honey, You've Got a Big Storm Comin'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet again, I want to apologize for taking so long to update. I actually finished this chapter two weeks after I posted Ch8, and my pace of writing is also half the reason why it takes so long.
> 
> Editing is another issue. I usually edit once or twice, then send it to my beta, then edit again. My beta is very busy with school and life, so she hasn't been able to look over things quickly, and I don't have a sub for her either.
> 
> So this poses the question to you guys (if you're still reading this): Would you like me to post before beta if it ends up taking too long? This means that I might go back to edit after I post, whenever it gets around to being proofread. Mostly its just grammar, punctuation, etc, though sometimes I'll change something here or there about character/plot/etc. So I'm not sure what to do. I could just post it and liVE WITH MY MISTAKES, I GUESS. (Btw this chapter is currently unbetaed.)
> 
> Anyways, let me know what you guys think about the posting thing. I am trying to put my best work out there. I want to improve my writing just as much as I want to share this gay nonsense. I'm still new to creative writing in general, so I'm still trying to find my stride.
> 
> Enough of my blathering, sorry! I hope this 15K-WORD CHAPTER (JFC) makes up for the wait at least a little (╥﹏╥)

"Levi."

"Mmrm."

"Leee _viiii."_

The sleepy grump being called grimaced at the voice quietly crooning at him, and at the arm around his middle that was trying to tug away from his grasp. He grunted again and pulled it back over himself. The breath of a quiet laugh in his ear made goosebumps raise over the back of his neck.

"I need my arm back, Levi."

"No, you don't," Levi grumbled back at him. He shifted back against the broad body behind him, squishing himself against Erwin and trying to fall back asleep. Erwin wasn’t allowed to leave when he was so comfortable and warm, the heat from his body behind him like his own personal space heater.

"Yes, I do," Erwin replied more urgently, inching himself back away from Levi. "I've had to pee for like an hour and I can’t detach my arm do that."

With another grunt of disapproval, Levi reluctantly let his captive free. He didn’t want to let go, but he wasn’t about to let Erwin piss on him either—he wasn’t into that.

"Where's the bathroom?"

Levi yanked the blanket off of Erwin in retaliation and burritoed himself completely with it, curling up into himself to get comfortable again. The stupid bastard...taking his warmth away.

"Down the hall. Door on the right," he grunted irritably, his voice muffled beneath the soft fabric.

The pat on his side was dampened by the layers of his cocoon, but Levi still felt it. He listened to Erwin padding quietly down the short hall. It was strange that hearing someone else’s footsteps on the floor of his home was so soothing. Levi hardly made a sound, always light on his feet, his steps short and familiar; Erwin stomped a bit, his heels coming down hard, his strides long.

His thoughts drifted around, not staying on one thing for longer than a moment before it was replaced by the next. The heat was becoming stifling inside the blanket, his breaths hot with no room to escape. Levi popped his head out the top, inhaling a lungful of fresh, cool air.

 _Door on the right_... Levi thought idly, flexing the hand that he drew with. That was 'right,' his sleepy brain told him. He flexed his other hand. That was 'not right'.

Levi's eyes snapped open and he yelled, "Left! The _left!_ "

" _Whoa_ ," he heard from the hall.

No... He was too late.

Levi wriggled around to stand up but fell right onto his face when the blanket wrapped so tightly around him wouldn't give. He struggled for a moment, wrestling himself free and ready to rip the damn thing in half. When he could move all his limbs again, he stalked down the hallway to Erwin who was still standing in the doorway of his art room.

"This room is so cool—"

The look of wonderment in Erwin's eyes was almost comical, but Levi shut the door in his face and cut him off from the overwhelming visual stimulus. He grabbed Erwin by the front of his shirt, turned him around, and pushed him toward the other door.

"Why so secretive?" Erwin laughed, letting Levi push and shove him around like it was nothing.

"Just go piss already."

Erwin followed his command and left him at the door. Pressing an exasperated hand to his face, Levi tried not to listen to the sound of Erwin relieving his bladder. He was so embarrassed that Erwin had seen his stupid art room.

Now, Levi's bedroom door was always open and—as anyone could see—the room was pretty plain. Only simple furniture and necessities took up the space of the large room. Only plain paint, simple curtains on a simple window.

But his art room was...a different story. The best phrase Levi could use to describe the room was 'organized chaos.' If everything wasn't so meticulously placed and filed, it would've been difficult to deny how much that room made him look like he had a hoarding problem.

There was a huge table against the far wall that he used as his workspace. Stacked on his table were towers of many drawers that housed all of his supplies; a short bookshelf sat next to it with all sorts of reference books and folders of images. A half-finished watercolor painting rested on the table—left there to dry nearly three weeks ago.

All of these things were normal, practical artist things. But the other bookcases, shelves, and displays that took up the rest of the room were filled with comics, artbooks, and tankoubon of manga. Scattered over shelves and any available surfaces were hoards of anime figures—mostly mechas and gundams (his favorite of which being his collection of Jaegers), and the occasional pretty-boy bishounen. An unhealthy amount of Cowboy Bebop merch filled in the gaps of empty space, leaving little room for much else.

He didn't even want to think about the fact that Erwin had most definitely seen the half-naked BL wall scrolls that hung from the walls next to his own art pieces. If Erwin didn't think Levi was gay before, that was a dead giveaway—unless Erwin was like 'normal' people who didn't know anything about manga or anime and thought that the pretty boys were girls anyways.

No, Erwin wouldn't be that naive. He would know that Levi was gay as all hell, and not to mention a closet weeb. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

Why did Erwin have to see his shame?

Erwin emerged from the bathroom and Levi took his place to calm his own screaming bladder. As he washed his hands afterwards, he looked at himself in the mirror and was surprised by his reflection. He looked better than he had all week. He was still a little scruffy and in desperate need of a shower, but he didn't look as sallow and depressed. He looked like he had actually gotten a good night's rest for once—and he had. He'd slept through the whole night, relaxed and warm with Erwin curled over him.

Levi flushed. Now that he was more awake, he couldn't believe that Erwin had slept on the floor with him like that. And they had held hands. And kiss—

No, it wasn't a kiss. It was an accident. Their lips had barely touched...and it wasn't on purpose, the both of them knew that. However it didn't stop the near-seizure that Levi's heart suffered every time he thought about it.

He knew now, just from that brief moment of contact—Erwin's lips weren't as chapped as he thought they'd be. They were soft...and Erwin was so quiet and calm with him. His body was so solid, but at the same time so comfortable and warm. The arm around him as they slept made him feel secure, and his legs were curled up into his as they _spooned_. Levi's ass was tucked right up against Erwin's—

Levi shook himself mentally and physically, jarring himself out of his thoughts.

"Don't be so fucking _gaayyyy,_ " he self-criticized, sneering at his reflection once more before he left the bathroom.

When he came back into the living room, he noticed that his music was still quietly playing from the speakers that sat on his small entertainment cupboard; obviously neither of them had bothered to leave their spots on the floor to turn it off last night. He also noticed how Erwin had changed into a new set of clothes, sitting on the couch as he tied the laces of his shoes. His things were already gathered and packed away in his bag, sitting at the ready for when Erwin would go, leaving no trace of himself behind.

"Leaving already?" Levi asked without bothering to suppress the disappointment creeping into his voice. "It's like 7:30."

"Well, it _is_ Friday. I have school today," Erwin replied, tying his last doubleknot and sitting back up. "And so do you," he added with a mildly deploring look that made Levi want to smack him.

Levi rolled his eyes and looked away from him, crossing his arms haughtily over his chest. "I'll go back on Monday," he muttered. He really didn't want to go back to school _at all_ , but he figured if he didn't want to be labeled as a truant and get into more trouble with bullshit authorities, he would have to. He wouldn't go back that day, though; he might as well squeeze out two more days away from the weekend and have a fresh start on Monday.

"If you don't show up, I'm going to come here and drag you to class myself," Erwin warned playfully. "I know where you live."

Levi replied with a loquacious, "tch," and a sullen pout.

Erwin stood, fully-dressed and looking refreshed as if he hadn't spent the night sleeping on the hard floor. His bag was already on his shoulder, his keys already in his hand. Levi didn't want him to go yet.

He didn't so much walk Erwin to the door as he did trail behind him. With the door open, Levi could see that it was still raining, though without the ferocity of the storm from last night. He expected the door to shut already, but when it didn't Levi looked up at Erwin watching him, still in the doorway. What the hell was Erwin looking at him like that for?

"Could I come over tonight, too?"

Levi blinked at him; he hadn't been expecting that. "You already tried burning my house down once, so you want to give it another go?"

"Hah!” Erwin blurted out his sudden laugh, ending with a small smile. "Well, that's not quite what I had in mind, but...I promise I won't use the stove this time."

Levi gave him a side-eyed glance. "Fine." He tried to make the word sound like he didn't really care. He didn't. Not really...

Erwin smiled at him all the same. "Alright. I'll see you later, then."

Before Levi realized that Erwin had put a hand softly on his head, the tall blond was already gone; the door closed behind him and cut Levi off from the world again. Levi touched his hair with his own hand, bewildered by the unexpected, affectionate gesture. It was something so brotherly, so platonic, but it still made a tingle of something undefined rush through his veins.

He rubbed his fingers together and frowned at himself, the oil between his fingertips making them feel gritty. If Erwin was going to come over again, he'd definitely take a shower before he returned. He'd shave and brush his teeth, too. Maybe even scavenge up something to eat.

He wondered if Erwin would stay over again. Would he curl up with him like he had last night? Would he be opposed if Levi were to suggest that they didn't sleep on the floor the next time? Instead maybe...in his bed?

 

* * *

 

"Fucking Christ," Levi groaned into the coffee table. "Does this shit ever end?"

He was overcome with the distinct urge to kindle a fire with every assignment that lay scattered out in front of him, but Erwin patted his back in an attempt at reassuring him. It worked...but just a little. Levi leaned his head back until it rested on the seat of the couch between Erwin's legs to grimace up at him from his position seated on the floor.

"That's what you get for taking two weeks off right before finals cram week," Erwin commented lightly, not removing his eyes from the passage he was highlighting in one of his literature books. Levi pouted childishly. He didn't want to do any more assignments; since he had returned to school, all he had been doing in his freetime was make-up work, homework, more make-up work, and more homework. He hadn't even studied for his finals yet and he had managed to exhaust his weekly ration of energy to read in only two hours, the words and letters starting to blend together into a black blur of ink and paper.

Erwin traded his highlighter for a pen and scribbled notes in the margins, only looking down at Levi when he had finished getting out whatever thoughts he had about whichever Shakespeare play he was reading. He pursed his lips at Levi and pressed the back of his pen into Levi's pouty cheek, squishing it with childish pokes. Levi swatted him away when he started making little 'pssh pssh pssh' sounds with each poke.

"What all do you have left to do?" he asked.

Levi snatched his list from under a pile of papers—so many things crossed out, but so many things still left to do—and lifted his head back up to read it.

"I'm caught up with the current week, but I can't make up PE participation, so I did the stupid nutrition article thing for extra credit. Chem was all worksheets and a test. Took the test yesterday, still have like five worksheets. Have to make a page of notes for the final. Math was easy; I did all the assignments already. Have to make a page of notes for that final too. Did two essays on short stories for English. Fuck, I have three more to do. Did the worksheets for art. I still have to do the two assignments for that. And the final project. Of course Zackley has like twelve requirements per project and I still don't know what I'm doing for them. _Ugghhh_."

Levi continued to let loose a string of curses that would make a grown man cower.

Erwin thumped his chin onto the top of Levi's head to rest there as he looked over the list again.

"Well, you've gotten a lot done already. We've got three days before the first finals on Monday, so you should be able to get a lot done Saturday and Sunday, right?" Erwin tried to encourage.

"You've only got a few more chem worksheets, the three essays, and three art projects to do. Then just notes for math and chem to make and study for, since you can't really study for the PE and English exams—though neither of those should be too hard. If you split it up evenly that gives you an art project and an essay a day, chem pages tomorrow, studying for chem on Saturday, and studying for Math on Sunday."

Well, when Erwin put it that way it didn't seem so bad...

"And, of course, if you get some more done tonight you'll have less to do on the weekend."

"How about I just drop out of high school?" Levi countered petulantly. He grunted when Erwin closed his knees and squished his shoulders between them.

"Don't do that," Erwin chided.

Levi squirmed until Erwin released him and sat up again, his chin leaving behind an odd phantom pain on the top of Levi's head where it had dug into his skull as he talked. Levi rubbed the spot and gathered up the last of the chem worksheets. He might as well just get the easy shit out of the way first.

"You'll be fine," Erwin promised.

_You'll be okay._

Levi remembered those words and how they had been whispered into his skin when they were pressed so close together on the floor, just on the other side of the room in which they currently sat. He didn't have to do much persuading to get Erwin to sleep in his bed with him on the next night he stayed over—a queen-size was a rather big bed for one person, and it was far more inviting than a rug on a hardwood floor.

They hadn't... _cuddled..._ since the first time. But in all honesty, Levi probably would've exploded from being held so close in his own damn bed; he'd spent almost the whole night awake, heart hammering in his chest as he continued an hours-long debate in his head over whether he should turn over and wrap around Erwin from behind or not.

He hadn't. That would've been too embarrassing. Erwin wasn't the one with the crippling anxiety and unpredictable mood swings, what did he need to be spooned for? By someone who was a foot shorter and plenty of pounds lighter than him, no less. That would seem desperate, wouldn't it?

Levi sighed loudly and got another friendly pat on the shoulder from the boy above him. "You're a smart guy, you'll pass finals _easy_."

He hoped Erwin was right about finals. He just wanted them over as quickly as possible so he could get caught up and be finished with the semester. Then he’d finally be able to relax for the few weeks they had of Winter Break.

 

* * *

 

Holy _shit_ , was it cold. 

The winter weather seemed to hit the small town hard after they had entered December. It was down to the thirties and a layer of frost glistened over the lawn in the morning, though it’d always melt by the afternoon. Levi wondered if it would properly snow out there; the only snow that had ever fallen in the city was always salted and swept away before anyone could even enjoy it.

Levi lamented the fact that he didn't have a another jacket aside from the hoodie he constantly wore. It wasn't even remotely sufficient enough for the weather, so he found himself wearing thermals underneath it and a scarf around his neck to block out as much of the freezing air as he could. It didn't help that he was outside, and probably would be for the next couple of hours.

He wasn't exactly completely willing to sit his ass on the freezing metal of the bleachers at school, but he would put up with it only because he was with Erwin. He hated that they were back at the fucking school; weren't they supposed to spend their Winter Break avoiding it as much as humanly possible?

Levi was surprised to see that the school actually seemed to be a somewhat popular spot even when classes weren't in session. They couldn't get into any of the locked buildings during break (aside from the sports shed that Mike had a key for), but every sports field was occupied by at least a few people sitting and talking, drinking hot cups of cocoa, throwing snow at each other and missing entirely. A spare few were actually using the sports fields and courts as they were meant to be used.

A group of guys were engrossed in a game of basketball, and when Levi and Erwin passed by them on their way to the football field, Levi met Nile's glare with his own and felt the back of his neck prickle with anxiety. Nile looked away from them to throw the ball to his friend, fixing his eyes right back on Levi after his pass had been received. He kept an unsettlingly close watch on him, and though they were only a few meters away from each other, the spark of hostility between them could probably be felt miles away.

Why did this fucking asshole have to be around him on his time off from school? He'd skillfully avoided him all throughout finals week, but the fucker always seemed to find him wherever he was and bully him from afar with hot glares, insulting gestures, and crude words left on his locker and belongings. It felt like Nile was trying to instigate something now that he knew Levi had some spark in him that wanted to fight back. But his mistake was that he believed he had the upperhand, when their only physical encounter had ended with a drunken Levi on the floor with the breath knocked out of his lungs. Nile had “proof” that he could get away with it now.

"Sure you don't want to play with us?" Erwin asked Levi when they reached the metal gate that surrounded the track and football field. When Levi didn't answer him, Erwin followed his sneer over to Nile who dropped his gaze away when his former-friend looked over to him.

"Yeah," Levi sighed out, his breath coming as a hot cloud of steam that burned the freezing air around it. He shivered a little and crossed his arms tighter over his chest, looking back up at Erwin.

He was there to play flag football with some of his teammates; there were only a few of them, but considering Levi didn't give two shits about sports, he was a far outlier compared to Erwin and his friends. They had an even number of people to play now anyways, it wasn't like they really needed him.

"I'll just draw and freeze my ass off. Same shit as always."

Levi shifted on his feet, his toes already becoming icicles in his Vans even though he had on his stupidest pair of fuzzy Christmas toe-socks. He was beginning to think that Erwin might have to chip his frozen corpse off the metal bleachers by the time he was finished with his game.

"Would this help?" Erwin asked, shelling off his letterman jacket and holding it open for him. Levi stared into the vacant armholes of the jacket and then back up to Erwin's dumb smiling face.

"I don't really need it if I'm going to be running around with Hanji on my tail," he explained. "And your face is already turning pink from the cold, so you need it more than I do."

_It's not pink from the fucking cold, you moron._

Levi dropped his bag to the ground and shoved his arms into the jacket, his face burning at such a boyfriend-like gesture. He was going to make a snide remark about how the jacket wouldn't help his frozen _ass_ , but that was before he knew that it did actually reach past his ass and just barely touch his thighs. The thing was like a goddamn tent on him. A really comfy...really warm...nice smelling...tent.

He turned back around and swatted Erwin's hands away when they started buttoning up the front for him, taking up the task with his own frozen fingertips. Fingerless gloves were probably not the best choice for the weather, but it was a necessary sacrifice considering how troublesome it was to draw when he couldn't hold a damn pencil without it slipping out of his grasp. Slinging his backpack over his shoulder again, he stuffed his hands in the front pockets, warming them by rubbing them into the interior fabric.

Erwin gave him a look that he couldn't figure out the meaning of; his eyes were strangely soft, his brow relaxed. He looked like he wanted to say something important but all that came from him was, "Your nose is so red," as he poked the tip of it with his finger.

"Fuck off," Levi grumbled at him, waving Erwin's hands away again.

The peculiar sensation that they were being watched made the hair on his arms stand up, but he didn't turn around to meet the nasty glower that was being directed at him from the basketball court. Erwin chuckled at him and left him standing there on the edge of the track with a wave and parting words. Before Erwin had even properly reached the group, a belt of vinyl flags was tossed at him and he was already darting across the field.

Taking his cue, Levi ambled toward the bleachers to take his perch. Though the icy coldness of the metal seeped through his jeans the moment he sat down, his torso and arms were nice and toasty bundled under his thermal, his hoodie and Erwin's jacket. He dug around in his backpack, shuffling around his spare clothes for staying the night at Erwin's to get to his pencil case and sketchbook.

He flexed his fingers in his gloves again, fingernails already starting to turn a faint shade of blue, a subtle numbness setting in. The painted heartagram design over the back of his gloves cracked with the lines of the fabric, faded and old from years of wear like the matching design on his hoodie that was hardly even visible anymore.

Levi flipped open his sketchbook, the pages already full and starting to wrinkle at the edges; there were only a handful of pages left that weren't covered with drawings.

He liked looking through them from time to time. It had only been a month or two since he started this book, but he could tell that he was improving. His proportions were more reasonable, the movements and expressions far more fluid than the ones he had drawn at the beginning of the year. His lines were more sure, more confident.

He settled himself into his drawing mode with Nirvana blaring from his headphones and his hood up to hide him away from the world. He started sketching the flag football game, but his attention on them waned quickly.

Levi turned back a few pages, looking for something he could clean up and finish. A little smile tweaked at his lips when he found the two pages he was looking for.

He had told Erwin that he needed to practice expressions and—ever the one to ask him to draw things—Erwin had offered to be his model of sorts. There were maybe twenty poses per page and all of them were highly exaggerated, comic-like, and cartoony like a Disney character. Sad, angry, furious, scared, happy, confused—every emotion clear in the twist of his mouth and furrow of his brow.

He hadn't shown them to Erwin yet; he insisted on inking them and cleaning up the rough edges before he let him look at them. Sifting around in his pencil case, he found his Micron pens and propped his sketchbook on his knees to set to work.

The ink followed his lines smoothly—caressing Erwin's jaw, tickling his neck, stroking his hair. After finishing most of the poses, Levi stopped and shifted inside Erwin's jacket.

He looked up to the field and spotted his friend easily. Hanji was gunning after him, grabbing at the flapping plastic flags secured to his waist even though he didn't even have the football. It looked like their game had momentarily devolved into a game of tag. He could hear Hanji's scream echoing across the field when they touched a flag, so close, before Erwin twisted around and made Hanji fall right on their big nose.

"I touched it, that counts!" Levi could hear Hanji moan. He rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to inking his page.

He was on his favorite expression of all of them, a bright smile—one that would have a bunch of gay sparkles floating around Erwin's face were he in a shoujo manga. Levi buried his nose into his scarf for warmth as he inked. He was glad that he chose to make the doodle of Erwin smiling one of the bigger ones; Levi knew he wouldn’t be satisfied if it was too small to get in all the little details.

The ink glided through Erwin's hair, wisping out at the ends where it sometimes flipped away from his face when it decided to be unruly. Erwin looked good with his hair slicked back, but in Levi's opinion he looked best when his hair was messy and not in any particular sort of order—like when he got out of the shower and scrubbed his head dry with his towel and just left it like that to air-dry, or when he woke up and had a gnarly case of bedhead. Erwin didn't have to do anything special to his appearance and Levi still found him more attractive and handsome than any clean-cut, airbrushed model that the world shoved in his face with ads and movies and magazines.

Levi inked over the bridge of Erwin's large nose and bold brows; they weren't conventionally attractive, but that just made Levi love them even more. He wondered if someone would feel the same about him.

His eyebrows were too thin and angry, his nose and chin too perky and feminine, his lips too thin, his eyes too dull and hooded. He wasn't particularly weak or too skinny, but he was small and stood inches below the average for guys his age. Levi clicked his tongue at himself. At least he didn't have a tiny dick.

The pen in his hand curved over the soft crescents of Erwin's smiling eyes. He was almost done with the page, with only a couple more expressions after the one he was still diligently working on. Would Erwin even like them when he showed them to him?

Like a scene from a bad dream, Levi watched in slow motion as his drawing pad moved away from him, his permanent pen dragging a hard black line through the middle of Erwin's face before he could react and lift his hand away.

_No...what?_

There was already red rage staining his vision when he looked up at Nile, smearing his grimy fingers all over the pages of his sketchbook.

"What the _fuck?!_ " Levi shouted, shooting a hand out to grab his ruined drawing but coming away empty when Nile held it out of his reach. He stood up sharply and threw his pen down, not caring in the slightest when he heard it bounce under the seat of the bleachers to fall many feet below into the dirt abyss beneath. "What the _fuck_ is your problem? Quit following me everywhere, you fucking stalker!"

" _I'm_ a stalker?" Nile asked in a sarcastically amused voice. He flipped through Levi's sketchbook, tearing edges of pages with his uncarefully forceful motions. "Looks like you are," he said with a sneer. "Does Erwin know how fucking pathetic you are?"

"Give it _back_ ," Levi growled and grabbed for it again. Nile turned away from him and walked down the steps with lazy strides, Levi following after him with loud, clanging stomps. He was so close to kicking this fucker square between his shoulder blades and sending him tumbling down the hard metal benches, but somehow he held back.

_Don't let him rile you up. Don't throw the first punch. Don't get in another fight. Don't fuck up again. You promised._

"Does he know he's got a grubby little faggot making gay eyes at him all the time?"

"Shut the fuck up," Levi bit out, his anger boiling up in his chest, over his face, behind his eyes. When they both reached the dirt at the foot of the bleachers, Nile turned back to him and looked away from the drawings in his hand.

"You trail after him like a lost little puppy. Maybe he does notice, the way he treats you like you're some _precious fucking thing_ ," Nile mocked him with a grimace, grabbing the shoulder of Erwin's letterman jacket; he shoved Levi back as he let go as if he had touched something unidentified and disgusting. Levi pushed forward again, not letting Nile think he had some sort of control over him.

"Oh. Is that was this is fucking about now?" Levi countered blandly. "You're jealous?" Nile's lip twitched, encouraging Levi to keep talking, keep running his mouth. He wanted to verbally beat the shit out of Nile and he hoped it was working.

"Are you mad that Erwin is giving me attention now and not you? So you harass me like a fucking third-grader? From what I hear, he stopped bothering with you long before I even fucking got here," Levi spat, jabbing his finger into Nile's chest.

He was laying it down, spelling it all out for Nile so it would get through his thick skull. Nile was just a self-entitled asshole that didn't even acknowledge his real intentions for bullying Levi. He was just a stupid child. A stupid, temperamental child.

"He's only babying you with attention because he feels sorry for you," Nile retorted. "He knows how much of a loser you are."

That wasn't true. Levi knew that wasn't true. Why did that thought tighten his throat anyways?

"You're confusing me with yourself," Levi scoffed. "Why are you so obsessed with him anyways, huh? What? You got a fucking crush on him or something?" Levi asked with a snide smirk.

Nile's face faltered. All of his self-confidence blew away with the crisp wind before he could pick up the pieces again. For a moment there, Levi caught a glimpse of the face in Nile's proverbial secret golden locket. Levi's eyes widened.

Oh... Oh, _shit_.

"You've _got_ to be fucking joking," Levi said with an incredulous laugh.

Nile threw Levi's sketchbook to the ground, his hands on Levi faster than he expected; they fisted tight into Erwin's jacket and pulled Levi off his heels.

" _You_. Don't know _shit_ ," he spat in Levi's face. Levi grabbed the hands on him, digging his nails into Nile's skin and returning his feral glare with one of his own.

"I'm not like you. I'm not _disgusting_ and pining after guys on the football team just to get their dicks up my ass." He dropped Levi back down and turned away from him with a scoff.

"And Erwin just plays along... I should have known he was a stupid fag like you," he added, kicking Levi's sketchbook into a puddle of mud and soggy grass.

Levi didn't know what it was... He could take being called names. He could take being called scrawny, prissy, gay, faggot, little shit, motherfucker. He'd gotten over that years ago and stopped caring altogether about what people called him behind his back and to his face. But when Nile called Erwin a fag—called him _stupid_ —Levi couldn't control himself.

He couldn't stop himself from whipping off Erwin's jacket and throwing it at the bench, or from nearly strangling himself to throw his scarf to the ground. He couldn't stop himself from picking up his destroyed sketchbook and hurling it at Nile. And he certainly couldn't stop the sopping mass of paper and metal binding once it took flight, hitting the back of Nile's head with such force and accuracy that he stumbled forward.

"Mother _fucker_."

He knew what was coming before it happened—Nile grabbing onto Levi’s hoodie again and preventing him from completely avoiding the fist that slammed into his face. A dull pain shot through his cheek and nose, making them feel instantly numb, his ears ringing. Levi shoved him off hard, the side of his hood coming away from his sweatshirt with a loud rip before Nile let go.

"Afraid to admit you've got a hard-on for your best friend?" Levi taunted, throwing his gloves off and avoiding another punch with a quick dodge; he hit Nile in the stomach for good measure. Nile grabbed him by his front again but Levi didn't give him the chance to do anything before he slammed his forehead into his nose.

Levi tasted a coppery warmth in his own mouth, and when he touched his upper lip it came away red with blood. Nile's first punch seemed to have been harder than Levi thought. The ache in his face wasn't so apparent when adrenaline and rage fueled his veins.

A fist connected with his cheekbone and he answered in kind with a blow to Nile's jaw. Nile beared down on him then, using his height as an advantage to cage Levi down and beat away his defense.

"You don't know _shit,_ " Nile growled again, hitting Levi hard enough in the arm to instantly bruise. "You don't know _Erwin_. You don't have any _friends_. You only have your senile, old grandma, don't you? Did your parents get rid of you because they knew how _worthless_ you are?" Nile rambled cruelly, his voice rising as his own words made him more furious.

Levi's resolve was starting to crack. Why did his words have to hurt more than punches and kicks? He knew that Nile was spouting insults to avoid his own denial, but it still felt like each sentence was a personalized bullet that shot right through him.

He hit Levi again. And again. And again. Levi shot out his fist but Nile grabbed it and caught the other when it came at him in retaliation. He struggled under Nile's strength and kneed him in the thigh, slammed his heel down into his foot, tried to yank away.

Nile wouldn't let go. He looked right in Levi's eyes, pulling him close enough that Levi could smell the sweat and rubber from his game of basketball.

"They don't want you. _Erwin_ doesn't want you. _Nobody_ wants a worthless, unimportant, desperate little _faggot_ like _you_."

The pure anger that exploded in Levi's chest could rival the force of a nuclear bomb. He hooked his heel around Nile's leg and buckled his knees, shoving him back with all the strength he had in him. The fall left Nile momentarily stunned—a reversal of what had happened at the party.

Levi was on him before he hit the ground, straddling his waist and hitting him hard in the face again before Nile got his bearings back. He pressed his knee down hard with all his weight on Nile's dominant arm, incapacitating it from hitting him again.

"Get off me, fag—" Nile's insult was cut off abruptly when Levi's hands wrapped around his throat.

The ferocity in Levi's voice made him sound like a stranger to his own ears when he growled, " _Say it again_."

He squeezed his fingers tighter, his hands shaking as rage rolled off him in waves hot enough to melt his skin.

Nile choked, his nostrils flaring and his eyes widening in panic as he struggled under Levi. He kneed Levi in the back and hit him with his weaker fist while the other was still painfully caught under Levi's shin.

" _Say it again!_ " Levi shouted, lifting Nile's head off the ground to slam it back into the dirt beneath them.

Levi's teeth ground so hard together he thought heard them crack. He ignored the searing pain of Nile hitting him in the same spot on his thigh over and over again, pulverizing the muscles between knuckles and femur.

He could do it. He could strangle this bastard. He could end his misery with his own two hands.

Suddenly there was another set of hands on Levi, grabbing at his arms and pulling them back. There was shouting around him, but Levi was deaf to the world; he was in his own far away place, long lost and not sure he would ever find his way back.

He threw his arm back, his elbow connecting hard with the person behind him. The momentary lapse in Levi's strong grip had Nile gasping and coughing for air, but Levi was hitting him again like nothing had gotten in his way. The arms behind him thrust under his and grabbed his shoulders, pulling him bodily off the bloodied boy lying in the dirt.

Levi thrashed in the hold like a trapped animal; he didn't give a shit if Nile's friend had pulled him off, he'd fight him too. He'd beat all of them until they couldn't form a coherent sentence anymore.

"Yeah, go with your faggot boyfriend and get AIDS," Nile derided, trying to get in the last insult as he stood up unsteadily and moved toward him again.

"Here! Have some!" Levi yelled and spat in Nile's face. His wad of bloody saliva hit Nile's chin with a wet slap, instantly contorting Nile’s face with disgust. He lunged at Levi again but Mike intercepted out of nowhere as if summoned by a spell. He grabbed Nile by the front of his shirt and easily pushed him back, Levi getting another kick in before he was out of reach. He struggled more, trying to get out of the vice grip holding him back so he could hit Nile again.

He started to come back, his hearing returning slow and muffled like he had been shoved under water and was only now coming up to the surface for air. His own breaths sounded wild—hot and huffing like a beast ready to kill. His name was being said over and over.

"Levi." The voice was stern, fighting to get his attention but Levi fought back. He didn't want to listen. He wanted to hit, he wanted to punch, he wanted to cause pain. The hold around him dropped and tried to turn him around by his shoulders, but Levi was still fixated on Nile behind Mike's towering body. Mike still had his hand in Nile's shirt, growling low in his face.

"Levi!"

No, he didn't care. Nothing mattered except Nile getting what he fucking deserved.

" _LEVI!_ " His name was bellowed in his face, his shoulders shaken violently to get him to finally look away and snap around to meet icy blue eyes frowning down at him. Erwin looked pissed, a spot on his jaw already sporting a rosy pink flush where Levi's elbow had slammed into it.

Levi shook in Erwin's hands, his fingers clenching and fidgeting against his own stomach; they dug into the fabric of his hoodie as if he was trying to claw himself out of it. His blind rage morphed instantly into a hot wave of shame and his chest heaved like he hadn't taken a single breath during the whole ordeal.

He couldn't stop it.

He couldn't stop the warm, salty tears as they spilled over his damp lashes. He felt so stupid crying in front of Erwin...and whoever else was watching—he didn't dare to turn his head. It just made him cry harder, his breath shuddering and bordering on hyperventilating.

Erwin's face softened, his hands moving up from his firm grip on Levi's shoulders to cup gently at his neck. "Yeah..." he sighed, the word strangely soothing as his thumbs stroked against the delicate skin behind Levi's ears. "Yeah... Come here," Erwin said calmly, moving toward the bleachers.

Levi took a step but his leg gave out under him, a hiss of pain forcing itself between his teeth; the dead leg Nile had given him rendered his muscles useless in an unsettling and painful way. He sat down on the ground instead, wiping his face of the freely flowing tears and grunting and flicking his hand away when he saw his hand smeared with watery blood.

He'd never cried after a fight, why was it different this time?

He felt the weight of eyes on him, so many eyes. Why did there have to be other people there? Why did they have to look at him? Erwin was in front of him again, bending down to his level and looking him in the eye. Levi looked away, his tears unrestrained and flowing like a broken faucet.

"Do you need me to do anything?" Erwin asked. He seemed like he didn't really know what to say at the moment. The air was still tense even though the fighting had stopped, the cold starting to seep into Levi's bones now that he wasn't hot with fury. He shivered where he sat in the dirt.

"I don't want to _be here_ ," Levi said, his voice as watery and pained as his face.

Erwin nodded and left him there for a moment, climbing up the bleachers three steps at a time to grab Levi's bag and gather up his things. He came back down just as quickly, frowning over at Mike who was still talking to Nile in a low voice.

What were they talking about? What were they saying?

The only thing Levi heard was Mike telling Nile to go home as he pushed him gently to get him to walk away. Levi was surprised to see that Nile obeyed, shrugging his skewed jacket back over his shoulders and wiping his bleeding nose on the back of his sleeve. He didn't look at Levi or Erwin when he left, turning his back to all of them and making his way back toward the school buildings.

Erwin picked up Levi's gloves and scarf from the ground, shaking them out before he put them into his backpack. He picked up the soiled sketchbook with a disgruntled sigh and wiped off as much filth as he could, though it didn't really do much by way of saving Levi's drawings.

"We'll save some of these," Erwin told him, despite the stained wet mess that clearly stated the opposite. "It can't be entirely ruined."

"Just throw it out," Levi grunted, standing up and pulling his backpack out of Erwin's hands to rifle around in one of the pockets; he found the pack of tissues he was looking for and dropped his bag into the dirt. Erwin tucked the wet mess of drawing paper into his own bag and grabbed his jacket from the bench. Even in his rage, Levi still had half a mind not to get Erwin's letterman filthy by his own fault.

Levi twisted up a few tissues and stuck them up his nose, mopping up the rest of the blood on his mouth and chin haphazardly. The stickiness on his face made it feel like all he did was smear it around.

"I don't have my car," Erwin said, holding his jacket open and nodding for Levi to put it on again. Levi allowed him to slip it over him, welcoming the warmth again. His backpack was next, settling over his shoulders. It felt heavier somehow; the adrenaline had left him and his body was starting to scream pain signals from every nerve. He was angry that his leg still wouldn't cooperate, buckling weakly every time he put weight on it like he didn't have control over a single muscle fiber.

Erwin turned around and bent down a little in front of Levi. "Come on," he said. "Let's go home."

Levi sniffled and took the invitation, wrapping his arms around Erwin's neck and wincing when his legs were lifted up by Erwin's strong hands. His entire body felt like one big bruise. Erwin shifted him up a little higher and grabbed his own bag, his bicep flexing angrily with the weight of it in addition to holding Levi up.

When he finally glanced around, Levi saw that most of the people had dispersed from the field. Hanji, Petra and Eld were still standing on the grass where Mike had joined them, muttering quietly to each other. None of them looked happy. He felt humiliated.

Levi turned his aching head back, resting his forehead on Erwin's shoulder and closing his eyes. Pressed up against Erwin's back, Levi was warm. He felt bad that Erwin would get so cold without his jacket on their way back to the house.

The pain took over his senses, pushing out any other thoughts in favor of the persistent throbbing in his face and body. He didn't even realize they had made it to Erwin's house until the boy holding him dropped his bag and unlocked the front door. For all Levi knew, they could have teleported there.

Erwin kicked his bag inside and left it there in the entryway, shutting the door and bringing Levi with him into the kitchen. Instead of setting him down on the floor, Erwin leaned back easily to seat him on the countertop. Levi let go of his hold and shrugged off his backpack, his arms falling lifelessly into his lap.

He was stupid. He was so stupid. Why did he do that? Why did he let Nile get the better of him?

Levi pulled at his own fingers, his nails clawing at the backs of his hands.

 _So stupid,_ he told himself. _Useless. Worthless. Unimportant. Unwanted. Unloved._

He bent his finger so far back he thought it might break—not really caring if it actually did. Erwin put his hands over his and pulled them away from each other, but Levi yanked his hands back, resuming his grabbing and pulling.

"What did he say to you?" Erwin asked, his jaw clenching tightly after the words left him. Levi licked his upper lip, tasting the tang of his blood and letting out a quietly derisive laugh.

"I'm going to get expelled again," he said to himself, his eyes unfocused and glassy as if he couldn't see Erwin standing right there in front of him. He thought his tears had run out, but he was wrong; they rose with his anxiety and came just as steadily as they had before. His voice cracked when he spoke, his temper flooding back into him. "I'm going back to juvy. I'm going to get probation again. No...it'll be worse..."

"Again?" Erwin asked. "For fighting?"

"No, for picking daisies. Of COURSE FOR FUCKING FIGHTING!" Levi shouted angrily, blindly grabbing the nearest thing and throwing it at a cupboard door. The utensil holder hit the wood with a loud crash, raining spatulas and spoons all over the floor. Erwin didn't even flinch.

"Please don't yell at me, Levi."

Levi huffed, his breath hiccuping when he inhaled. "I fucked up again. I fucked up again. I fucked up again," Levi muttered to himself over and over. "I let that stupid asshole get to me. I gave him what he wanted. I fucked up again."

"What did he say to you, Levi?"

Levi sniffed and hiccuped again. "Nothing that isn't true," he replied bitterly with a sarcastic sort of half-smile. "I don't have any friends and nobody wan...nobody wants a worthless little faggot like me."

Erwin frowned hard. The nastiness in his expression was uncharacteristic; Levi was so used to that soft smile.

"That's not true. None of that is true, Levi."

"'That's not true,'" Levi mocked with a mirthless laugh. "'That's not true.' Yes it _is_."

"It's not—"

"You said things would get better!"

"They _will_ , Levi. I know they wil—"

"Does this look fucking better to you? You don't know anything! How am I supposed to trust you when you're just going to lie to my fucking face?" he yelled, little flecks of blood spraying from his lips where his nosebleed had trickled down from the soaked tissue stuffed up his nose. Erwin looked stunned as if Levi had slapped him, but Levi just continued on.

"I haven't had a friend since _second grade._ My dad is a mean drunk who beat me every other night just for the hell of it for _years_ until the fucking _neighbors_ found out. My step-mom didn't do _shit_. SS put me with my uncle and he didn't even last a month before he gave up on me." Levi couldn't see Erwin's face anymore through the blur of his tears, but he kept going.

"I've been in and out of juvy for years and everywhere I go there's some _asshole_ like Nile who can't leave me the fuck alone! _Nobody. Wants me_."

Erwin's brows drew together, making him look like he might cry himself. Levi didn't want Erwin's pity. He didn't want anyone's pity. Erwin's mouth opened to say something.

 _Don't fucking say you want me,_ Levi howled in his head.

"That's not your fault," he said quietly. "None of that is your fault. You can't control those people or what they do. It's shitty people putting you in shitty situations, and that's not your fault." Erwin pulled Levi's hands apart where his fingers were threatening to dislocate themselves again and Levi shoved Erwin hard in the chest.

"It is my fault! I provoked my dad. I provoked Nile. I provoked all of them!" Levi balled his hands into fists, his nails digging crescents into his palms as he wallowed in self-deprecation. "Nobody forced me to fight back. Nobody forced me to drink or try a bunch of stupid drugs. Nobody forced me to be an antisocial basket case! _I_ did that! _Me!_ " he yelled, jabbing his finger into his own chest. "And I fucking deserve it! I deserve all of it! Why can't you fucking understand that?"

"None of that is your fault, Levi." Erwin's voice was stern and matter-of-fact, his face equally so. It pissed Levi off—but behind the firmness of Erwin's expression there was a plea, there was sympathy. Maybe even empathy. "You don't deserve any of that. It's not your fault..."

"Cut the _Good Will Hunting_ bullshit, it's not going to work on me," Levi snapped, but he could feel his resistance growing weaker by the second. Erwin repeated himself over and over. He was doing it on purpose—driving the message deeper and deeper into the solid steel wall Levi had built for himself. He sought out a worn spot in his defense, something easier to break through.

"But it isn't your fault, Levi. It's really not."

Levi's breath sobbed from his lungs. "It's not going to work," he repeated weakly, the heat in his voice flickering out.

Erwin came close to him again and didn't stop when he reached the space of counter between Levi's legs, or when Levi shoved him again. Strong arms wrapped around his shoulders and pulled him closer until his face was tucked against Erwin's chest. Erwin was still cold from the walk over and Levi's nose was screaming at him in pain where it was pressed into Erwin's shirt, but Levi didn't pull away. He couldn't move.

_That physical comfort... He found a weak spot._

"It's not going to work..."

"It's not your fault, Levi. And don't say nobody wants you." The softest note of anger wedged between his words. "Because if I didn't want you around, I wouldn't fucking be here, alright?"

_He drove it home._

"It's not going t... It's not..."

_...my fault._

Levi brought his arms up and hugged Erwin. When Erwin held him tighter, Levi choked out a sob and grabbed him closer, his fingers digging into Erwin's shoulder blades and twisting in his shirt.

He cried and cried. He groaned and yelled, angry and primal, into Erwin's chest. His fingers pulled and dug and grabbed and twisted. He wondered if it was hurting Erwin, but he held him just as close—hands slowly kneading and rubbing his back, cheek pressed to the top of his head.

It felt like they were there for hours, holding onto each other and waiting for the calm to come. Levi's lungs still stuttered when he inhaled but he had finally stopped crying. Erwin had made to move away, but when Levi didn't let go he hugged him again, warm and tight.

He couldn't get enough of Erwin's comfort. It made him think for a fleeting moment that maybe if he was hugged more as a kid he wouldn't've ended up like this.

When he finally relaxed his grip on Erwin's back and pulled away, Levi's fingers ached in every joint from clenching them so tight to hold Erwin to him. He rubbed his eyes on the sleeves of Erwin's jacket that was still draped over him.

"Don't...tell anyone...I cried like that..." Levi muttered between quiet hiccuping breaths. He knew people had seen him cry when he was at school—definitely Mike, and probably all of Erwin's friends for that matter. He didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to think about seeing them when they came back from break.

Erwin wiped away a tear that Levi had missed with his thumb.

"I won't."

A few more errant tears trickled from the corners of Levi's eyes when he sniffled. He wiped at them again, his eyelids feeling like they'd been rubbed raw with salt.

"Fuck, I need a drink," he muttered with a quiet laugh at himself. He was only half-serious, he told himself.

Erwin sighed gently at him. He knew Levi was being a bit more than half-serious.

"How about some water?"

When Levi waved at him dismissively he took that as his cue to get his cherry-red cup from the cupboard and fill it with the refreshingly cool water from the fridge. He handed the metal cup to Levi, who fixed his eyes on the ding in the side from when it had been dropped onto the hard tile at the party. He twisted the cup around—out of sight, out of mind—and took a long drink, looking at Erwin's chest instead.

Levi frowned. "I got blood on your shirt."

Erwin looked down, pulling his shirt away from his skin with pinched fingers. He let go of it and let it settle back onto his body.

"Don't worry about it, it'll come out," he said, looking Levi over. "Let's get you cleaned up, first."

Levi waited for Erwin on the counter, not moving any more than to lift his cup to his lips to take more sips of water; he couldn't tell if the tangy taste that hit his tongue was from the metal of his cup or blood in his mouth. Erwin returned with a little bin of first aid supplies and set it on the marbled stone next to Levi.

"I can have my dad look at you when he gets home," he offered, gently pulling the soiled tissue from Levi's nose and tossing it away before he washed his hands. He grabbed some cotton pads and a bottle of antiseptic spray from the bin and settled himself between Levi's legs again. "It doesn't look like you have any imminently serious injuries—from what I can tell at least. But it doesn't hurt to be sure."

"What a great first impression," Levi commented bitterly, grimacing sarcastically with what were probably bloody teeth. A quietly apologetic smile was sent his way in response.

Erwin gave Levi a few fresh tissues to stanch his nosebleed that was still trickling, though thankfully it had slowed significantly from when it had started. Holding his nose pinched with the tissues, he tilted his head forward while Erwin took his other hand and sprayed his dirty, bruised knuckles with the antiseptic. The miniscule cuts and abrasions stung from the liquid, but Erwin dabbed it off before it became too unbearable. The wad of tissues came away from his nose less bloody than he thought it'd be when he switched hands for Erwin.

"Don't take what Nile said personally," Erwin said to break the silence, brushing his thumb over the bumps of Levi's knuckles. "He's just taking his insecurities out on you because he thinks he can get away with it. Though, I doubt he thinks that anymore."

He gave Levi back his hand and rested his own on either side of Levi's hips, leaning against the counter. He was so close and Levi wanted to wrap his arms around Erwin's neck again, but instead he snuffled into his tissues and pinched his nose a little harder.

"He got bullied a lot his first two years of high school—by guys that just found things to pick on him for. But I suppose, instead of standing up for himself, he just took it and kept letting it at him until he became just like them."

"He's been doing that shit to me since the first day I got here," Levi said, his voice nasally against the tissues. "And it got worse the more I hung out with you."

"I'm sorry, Levi," Erwin replied with a saddened frown.

"Did you know he has a fucking crush on you?" Levi blurted out before he could hold the question back. His jaw clenched and he winced when he pinched his nose a little too hard as he waited for Erwin's answer.

Erwin sighed through his nose.

"Yes."

Levi's eyes widened and he pulled the tissues away from his face.

"You knew?"

Did Erwin know that Levi had a crush on him too?

"It's kind of hard not to know when he tells me in the middle of the locker room that he broke up with his girlfriend because he likes me." _Wow_ , Levi thought. Nile actually had more balls than him to do something as stupid as that.

"What did you tell him?"

"The truth. That I didn't like him like that, and I wanted us to just be friends." Erwin closed his eyes and sighed again. Levi nodded slightly, more to himself than anything else. Would Erwin think the same about him if he knew Levi liked him?

"In all honesty, I think I'm part of the reason why he went so far downhill. But I don't know. We all have our flaws. You have yours, he has his, and I have mine."

"Please," Levi scoffed. "What fucking flaws do you have?"

The look Erwin gave Levi made him flush with embarrassment. Now _he_ sounded like the hopelessly smitten one, making Erwin out to be Mr. Perfect when clearly he felt far from it.

His eyes weren't unkind when he replied, "I have a lot of flaws. I've made mistakes. I guess I'm just good at hiding them," he said with a small laugh.

Erwin paused for a moment.

"Do you know how Hanji sometimes calls me 'Dad'?" Levi didn't really see how that related to the conversation at hand, but he nodded.

"I guess you could say a lot of the time on sports teams, there's someone who's referred to as the 'Team Mom,' or something like that. The one who's the most encouraging and gets everyone to work together and cheers them up. They labeled me as 'Team Dad,' because I was the one that 'pushed for success.' But it wasn't exactly a term of endearment at first."

He brought the antiseptic up to Levi's face and softly added, "Close your eyes, please."

Levi closed them and thought back to the first time Erwin had taken him into the locker room with him. ' _Whatever,_ Dad,' he remembered Nile shouting at him, like a typical bratty teenager.

It made a little more sense now. It was more of an insult than it had appeared to be.

Levi flinched when the cold spray hit him in the nose and mouth, stinging the split in his lip that he hadn't noticed before. Erwin dabbed gently under his nose with one of the cotton pads.

"Why wasn't it?" Levi prompted. Erwin looked up from his bloody nose to his eyes, searching for something in them. He seemed to have found what he was looking for, as he returned to dabbing the blood off Levi's face and continued on.

"Even when I was just a freshman on the frosh team, Coach P. already started pushing for me to work towards being Captain, because he saw potential in me. Captain is usually a senior position, so me being fresh into high school, fresh on the team, and pushing plays on the varsity upperclassman didn't exactly suit too well with them." Erwin sighed, and Levi could tell that the sound carried a weight of disappointment.

"But I kept _pushing_ and _pushing_ because I wanted our team to be the _best_... But I suppose...how should I put it? I was thinking more about the _team_ than my actual _teammates_."

"Yeah...I think I get what you mean," Levi replied quietly. "Looking at the big picture rather than all the people that are going to get you there?"

Erwin nodded, the tendons in his jaw flexing.

"It put a real strain on my friendships, especially Nile's because he was Captain at the beginning of this year, and he was already starting to be a jackass before then. Hanji and Mike actually had to tell me to back off a little because I didn't even realize that I was pushing even _harder_ when we moved up to varsity." Erwin breathed angrily through his nose. "I didn't really listen to them at first. I had my head too far up my ass to see what it was doing to Nile. I didn't consider what he thought, or what anyone else on the team thought."

Levi frowned slightly. It was hard to believe what Erwin was saying was true. Not listening to his best friends? Not considering them? He'd never seen him like that... Erwin had never been like that with him...

"But you're helping Mike now, though, aren't you?"

"Sometimes I think he just asks for my help to humor me," Erwin replied with a quiet chuckle that lacked any real humor. But then he smiled softly to himself—genuinely. "...But we work well together. He's a good Captain, with or without me. And a good friend. I've had to earn back the trust of my friends and teammates, but he's always been the one to start picking me up even before I start falling down. Hanji, too."

Levi hummed in response. His thoughts reminded him of how hurt Erwin had looked when he had screamed at him, _How am I supposed to trust you?_ He shouldn't have said that. Erwin worked so hard to earn Levi's trust when he was arguably the hardest person to achieve that with. Erwin _did_ have his trust, and Levi didn't want him to doubt that.

He hissed loudly when Erwin rubbed at his busted lip, getting an apology and a lighter touch as Erwin gingerly dabbed off the drying blood. Levi wanted to lick at his lip but he held back the urge when he tasted the bit of antiseptic that was already starting to numb the tip of his tongue.

"But with Nile," Erwin continued, returning the conversation back to the initial subject, "I think me seeming like I was pushing him out of the way as Captain, and then rejecting him on top of that, was the catalyst that tipped him over the edge. Then to add insult to injury, he got himself kicked off the team entirely." Erwin wiped the smeared dry blood from Levi's chin. "I didn't do enough to stop it. I'm sorry that he ended up taking it out on you." Erwin threw out the soiled cotton with more force than needed, agitation furrowing his brow as he dug around in the bin for something else.

Erwin was a good guy. But while he blamed himself for the small things on the surface, Levi could tell that those offhanded comments were just the tip of the iceberg. He was just like Levi. Just as stubborn, just as willing to take the blame. As Levi guilted himself for his own misfortunes, Erwin guilted himself for those of others.

"It's not your fault that I got in a fight," Levi said with a scoff at himself. "I've gotten into plenty of fights on my own, thanks." He looked down at his hands and fidgeted with his fingers, gently this time.

"Having a short fuse doesn't pair well with being as depressed and anxious as I am."

It was the first time he had openly admitted that to someone; he'd never even explicitly talked to his nanna about it, but it felt right to say something after Erwin had told him so much.

"I'm surprised you haven't...gotten tired of me yet...or something."

"I'm not tired of you," Erwin reassured, placing a gentle hand on his leg. "I think you and I are alike in many ways," he continued, making Levi look back up at him. "We both don't like admitting to the weaknesses that we know we have, though we may deal with them differently."

He found the little jar of salve he was looking for and turned it between his fingers. He looked Levi in the eye when he continued.

"I get sad sometimes, like you. I get angry. I feel like I'm not good enough or doing the best that I know I should. I feel like I'm going to disappoint everyone, and I'm afraid of failure." He sighed again, frowning slightly to himself. "But when you feel like that...when _I_ feel that...it should be a motivation to do better for _yourself_...you know? Don't let it grow and grow until it's some huge, ravenous monster that can eat you. I won't let mine eat me, so don't let yours eat you."

Levi watched Erwin's eyes. They were steady, unlike the pulse beating beneath Levi's skin. No one had ever talked to him like this. No one had ever reached that place inside him that connected him so strongly with another person. Not his nanna, not a doctor, or counselor, or therapist. No one except the boy standing in front of him, brushing a comforting hand against his bruised thigh.

"We all have our ‘monsters,’ Levi. But every monster has a weakness, so take advantage of it." He moved his hand to cover Levi's fidgeting fingers. "It's easier if you don't fight it alone, but you _can_ fight it. _Destroy it_ ," he said with such a seriousness that it made Levi hold his breath. That seriousness melted away to a hesitant little smile that Levi was thankful to see again.

"Destroy it like you destroyed Nile's face," he said, finally forcing a quiet laugh from Levi that made Erwin really smile. Levi had to hand it to him—he knew how to give a halfway decent motivational speech. He curled his fingers over Erwin's, their eyes meeting again and holding the other's gaze for a long, quiet moment.

There weren’t proper words to describe how looking into someone's eyes like that made him feel. It wasn't tense or unsettling, but there was a strange sort of intimacy about it that made Levi's skin tingle.

What he wouldn't give to kiss him right then...

He tightened his fingers over Erwin's hand for a moment before it pulled away. Levi was quiet when Erwin twisted off the cap to the little jar of salve and dipped his fingertip into it; he brought it up to Levi's lips. It stung a little, but Levi was willing to put that thought on the sidelines to focus on how it felt to have Erwin drag his finger along his bottom lip.

It was soft and felt almost as intimate as their moment of eye contact. It had him looking at Erwin's lips. He wanted to touch them too. He didn't care about the ointment being massaged lightly into the small split in his skin—he wanted Erwin to kiss it better.

Levi sighed quietly and rubbed his lips together when Erwin's hand pulled away to rub some salve onto his own lips that were starting to chap from the cold weather. Levi settled for the indirect kiss, though it wasn't what he really wanted.

"Do I look like shit?" Levi asked to distract himself from staring at Erwin's lips again, shifting their conversation back to a less heavy tone.

"...No," came the hesitant reply.

"Don't bullshit me."

"You look a little banged up, but it's not as bad as it could be." Erwin patted Levi's good thigh and pushed away from the counter. He gathered everything neatly back into the bin before he started picking up all the spatulas that Levi had thrown to the floor in his fit of anger.

"Don't," Levi protested, inching himself off the counter. "Let me do that." He dropped down onto the floor, finally able to stand on his hurt leg, though the muscles still twitched angrily at the strain.

Erwin raised his hand to Levi. "It's alright. I don't mind."

Levi watched him pick up the last of the utensils and sighed out of his nose, hating how the air didn't easily flow through the clotted blood in its path. "I still feel disgusting, can I take a shower?"

"Of course," Erwin replied easily.

Levi picked up his bag from the floor and looked down at the front of his hoodie, stained with his nose blood. He was lucky it didn't really show on the faded black fabric, but it was starting to get a little sticky. He draped Erwin’s jacket over one of the high stools at the counter and pulled his hoodie off, avoiding his face as best as he could, and balled it up in his hands. His grey shirt underneath had a few spots of blood that had soaked through, more apparent on the lighter color of fabric. He played with the torn seam of his hood, the fabric starting to fray at the edges.

"I could try to fix that," Erwin offered, coming back up to Levi and taking the hoodie from him to examine the tear. "I'm no seamstress, but I think I know how to mend something like that."

"Don't worry about it. I'll just have Nanna fix it." Levi's heart sank. He put his face in his hands and closed his eyes, the top of his head brushing against Erwin's chest from how close he was standing. " _Fuck!_ " he shouted into his fingers.

"What is it?" Erwin asked, concerned again as his fingers came to rest against the short hair at the base of Levi's skull. He rubbed at Levi's neck, trying to comfort him with the same gesture that Levi always did himself.

"I'm spending the holidays with my nanna, remember? I'm leaving _tomorrow,_ " Levi lamented with a loud groan as he pulled his head up again. He touched the painful spot under his eye where he knew there would no doubt be an ugly bruise, one among the many.

"She's gonna fucking kill me."

 

* * *

 

Levi had spent most of his time in the shower just standing under the hot spray of the water and moping. It hurt where the water had beat against his bruised skin and he knew he had scrubbed too hard, but he masochistically welcomed the pain as a sort of punishment for getting in another stupid fight. 

He swore to himself and his nanna that he wouldn't get in another fight, but he did. He swore he wouldn't lose his shit in front of Erwin, but he did. He'd ended up breaking down in front of him far harder than he ever could have anticipated.

He stood now in front of Erwin's futon couch in his warmest pair of pajama pants and one of Erwin's Rammstein tour T-shirts. He had gotten out of the shower only to discover that he hadn't packed an extra shirt in his bag—and with his bloody shirt and hoodie already in the washer, there wasn't much else to do besides let Erwin give him one of his. Erwin didn't seem put out by it in the slightest.

Levi felt small in the shirt that was a few sizes too big for him, but it was comfortable. The fabric was softened in a way that only happened when a shirt was loved for many years, and it wasn't so big that it felt like a dress. His comfort in his clothes was juxtaposed by the discomfort in his body.

He felt stiff and cold from sitting with ice packs all over him for the past hour or so. His leg was already turning mottled, ugly colors. There were a few bruises on his ribs and arms, but they were easy to ignore compared to his leg.

His face was the worst. His nose wasn't crooked, but he wasn't one-hundred-percent sure that it wasn't broken either; it had swelled quite a bit, making his nose look ugly and fat. The bruising over the bridge of his nose blended out into the shiner beneath his eye and complemented the dark bruises on the edge of his jaw.

"It's cold," Levi complained to Erwin, who was laying across the entirety of the futon cushion. He looked as comfortable as a huge lounging cat in his sleeping shorts and tank top. Levi didn't know how he wasn't freezing, but he supposed that was what the blanket draped over his legs was for. He had the only blanket upstairs since the others were down in the wash, and Levi was on a personal mission to steal it from him.

Erwin didn't move from his sprawled, lazy position, but he held an arm out to Levi like he was gesturing for him to sit on the couch with him.

"Are you going to move your ass over?" Levi asked him sassily. Clearly there wasn't any room for him with this fucking couch hog taking up residence in front of him.

"I'm already comfortable," Erwin complained back playfully, grunting loudly when Levi sat himself heavily on his stomach. Levi glared down at Erwin out of the side of his eye and yanked the blanket off his legs to drape over himself. He smiled up at Levi, though his lungs were struggling from the extra weight.

"You're heavier than you look, you know," he said, rubbing Levi's leg gently. "Did the ice and Tylenol help at all?"

"Yeah," Levi replied. "But I'm fucking cold," he repeated, pulling the blanket tighter over himself when another shiver of chills vibrated his core.

"Why don't you lie down, then?" Erwin suggested. Levi looked down at him.

"You want me to lay on top of you?" he asked with a snort; though he made it sound like the suggestion was the stupidest thing he had ever heard, he couldn't deny to himself how eager he was about the prospect. It made his heart flip in his chest, his breath stick in his throat. Ever since Erwin had hugged him so close in the kitchen he had wanted another. Though, laying on top of him for warmth was a few steps above being hugged to calm him from his embarrassing meltdown.

"Only if you want to," Erwin replied with his arms open invitingly. "I _am_ warm," he added, a sly little glint in his eye.

Levi flushed hotly and hoped it didn't show through all his ugly bruises.

"That's fucking gay."

Erwin's eyes widened for a second at the accusation, but then he laughed and lowered his arms.

"Yeah, I guess you're right," he said, turning his attention back to the TV that lit up the dark room.

Levi's face pinched—stubborn and annoyed—as he slumped over onto Erwin's body. The arms caught him almost instantly. He lay on his side, face aflame and throbbing where his bruised cheekbone pressed against Erwin's chest.

Erwin was warm, just like he had promised.

He squirmed around, trying to get comfortable, and ended up turning onto his stomach when lying on one side squished his pained ribs and lying on the other aggravated the deep bruise in his leg. When he finally settled his face burned even hotter.

Erwin's chest was comfortable even through the ache in his face, his muscles not so hard that they were unpleasant to rest against. Levi's arms were tucked up to his own chest, his feet resting against Erwin's underneath the blanket that he had pulled back down with dexterous toes.

The sigh that left Erwin was calm and relaxed as he wrapped his arms back around Levi, palms resting warm and heavy against his back. That only-recently familiar sense of intimate comfort wrapped around him with those arms; it was almost as good as sleeping with Erwin curled up behind him.

It transported him to a place where he didn’t have anything to worry about. In that place there was nothing to be anxious or furious about. There was no negativity. There were no secrets the other did not know.

It gave him an inkling of a feeling that he might just end up alright in the end.

"This is gay," Levi grumbled, staring at the TV with unfocused, distracted eyes. Erwin chuckled again, rubbing his hands into the fabric of his shirt.

"I'm gay," he added without thinking.

When the hands on his back stilled, Levi's entire body tensed.

Shit.

Levi had meant it to sound like a joke, but the tone his voice produced on its own made it sound far more like a confession.

That was it. He had officially just made things fucking awkward between them. He wanted to punch himself in the face—right in his black eye.

It wasn't apparent to Levi just how anxious he was about fucking up his friendship with Erwin until he saw rather than felt how badly his arms were shaking, caught between both their chests. All of Nile's slurs were given a context of truth to Erwin now. Levi was just waiting for him to push him off, or to clear his throat awkwardly to tell him that he didn't want Levi to touch him or be around him anymore.

Erwin cleared his throat awkwardly.

"Would you be mad at me..." Erwin started, the dread starting to sink into Levi's stomach, "if I told you I figured that out a long time ago?"

Levi's fingers clenched into Erwin's shirt. That wasn't what he was expecting to hear at all. That seemed to be becoming a trend, he realized; everything Erwin did or said seemed so unexpected. He shouldn’t even be surprised anymore, but he always seemed to catch him off guard.

" _What?_ "

"Let's be real, Levi," Erwin said lightheartedly. "Your staring isn't always subtle." He laughed then, but Levi could tell it wasn't a laugh that was making fun of him. "I don't know, I just had a feeling."

Levi groaned angrily into Erwin's chest, the sound grating his throat. How could he be so stupid and obvious?

"Does it bother you?" Levi asked, the muscles of his lower back flexing subconsciously against Erwin's fingers touching his bare skin where the loose T-shirt had ridden up.

When Erwin hummed deeply, Levi could feel it with his whole body. "You being gay? No." His hands resumed their soft, gentle strokes over his back. "You didn't have to wait so long to tell me, though. Has that been on your mind this whole time?"

A quiet breath left Levi's lips. He relaxed his arms out from under his body and rested them on either side of Erwin's chest. "Yeah."

"You should've known I'd be okay with it," Erwin said. "I mean, Hanji's one of my best friends and they're gay enough for the both of us." Levi’s body shuddered with a silent laugh that had Erwin laughing quietly aloud with him. That was a good point. He remembered thinking that same thought so long ago, but he was too stubborn to actually entertain the reality of it.

"If it makes you feel any better," Erwin said quietly, "I like both. Girls and guys."

Levi turned his head to rest his chin on Erwin's pec. "You only let girls flirt with you," Levi defended lamely, trying to find something to validate his disbelief.

Erwin gave him a knowing look that made him clench his jaw. That look told him that Erwin had always known, had always seen right through him. And yet he had never stopped Levi.

The staring. The touching. The looks. The drawings. The angry flushes, and the not-so-angry flushes.

None of it.

" _Only_ girls?" Erwin asked, confirming every thought Levi just had.

Levi turned his face away from Erwin and laid it back on his chest, mumbling " _stupid_ ... _embarrassing...dumb_ " under his breath, directed at the both of them rather than just himself. Erwin just chuckled like he always did, his voice never losing that warmth that it always seemed to carry.

So, he knew...

What did that mean then? Did Erwin maybe feel the same? Or did he just put up with Levi's feelings for him because he wanted to keep him as a friend?

...Would he be rejected like Nile if he asked?

They were silent for another long while, breathing softly as they lay pressed against each other and watching Nicolas Cage and his stupid stringy hair run around a plane on the other side of the TV screen. Levi closed his eyes, lightly napping with the sounds of _Con Air_ playing in the background and the air filling Erwin's lungs; the exhaustion of his shitstorm of a day had finally caught up to him.

Levi thought it was just his face throbbing at first, but he realized he could feel Erwin's heartbeat. His pulse was strong and alive, and Levi never would have thought it would be a sound or feeling that he would crave again and again. He felt Erwin's hands on the bare skin of his lower back again, dipping slightly under the hem of the T-Shirt.

"You're gonna put a move on me now that you've admitted to being a half-gay?" Levi muttered lazily into his chest, not opening his eyes. He was too tired to be embarrassed by his own question.

Erwin slid his hands away to pull the blanket up a little further. While it was over their legs and bunched over their feet, it didn't reach further than Levi's ass. "You're still cold," was all he said, placing his hands back on Levi's skin. He didn't move them this time, patiently waiting.

Levi sighed through his swollen nose and swallowed thickly. "Go ahead," he said quietly. "I know whose pervert hands are up my shirt this time."

Erwin's silent laugh jostled him where he lay. He couldn’t suppress his blush any longer when he felt the warm hands slide under the shirt and stroke all the way up his bare back, all the way back down. He sighed again, hoping that Erwin didn't notice the delicate shudder that went with it.

The touch was addicting, just like everything else about Erwin. He liked that Erwin's hands weren't quite soft. He liked how the touch was gentle, yet solidly firm at the same time. Just the idea of the touch made Levi feel warmer than the actual friction of skin on skin; it made him feel more alive somehow, more present.

He opened his eyes again, his heart jumping in his chest; he wondered if Erwin had felt it. He wanted to tell him something. He needed to.

It was just four words.

Four words were easy to remember. Four words were easy to memorize. Four words were easy to say.

_Erwin, I like you._

_Erwin, I like you._

_Erwin, I love you._

"Erwin, I..."

The boy under him hugged him a little tighter, arms wrapped around him and hands tucked up under his shirt to press against Levi's sharp shoulder blades. "Hm?" he hummed, deep and content.

"I..." Levi tightened his arms against Erwin's sides—almost a hug back—his mouth suddenly dry. He swallowed against his sandpapery tongue. Two words out...he was halfway there.

He scrunched his eyes closed again with a small frown.

"I fucking hate this movie."

 

* * *

 

" _I'm home_ ," Levi could hear a voice say somewhere far away. The voice was deep and warm. Unfamiliar. A lingering voice from a dream.

Erwin was breathing deeply beneath him, lightly napping like Levi had been. Levi turned his head to the other side, his neck and face aching too much to put up with facing the TV any longer. He kept his eyes closed, drowsy and drifting between states of alertness and sleep. His head tucked up under Erwin's chin and he hugged him closer, one of his legs slipping down to rest over Erwin’s hip.

" _Erwin?_ " The sound of footsteps coming up the stairs, louder and more real with each step, had Levi opening his eyes in a panic.

_Shit. Shit. Shit._

Levi squirmed around but Erwin had his arms hugged tight around him, his hands still stuck firmly up inside the shirt that he had lent Levi. He ground his knuckles between Erwin's ribs to wake him right before the door creaked open.

Of course Erwin's dad didn't fucking knock. What sensible parent ever knocked on their teenage kid's door before they barged in?

Levi stayed still and quiet, evening his breathing to feign sleep since he had lost his chance to escape. Erwin roused beneath him, rubbing Levi's back again as he yawned. Then he froze.

Though his eyes were closed and he was facing toward the wall, Levi could feel the tension instantly coil in Erwin's muscles; he could almost hear his throat constricting.

"Oh? Got yourself a girlfriend?" Erwin's father mused from the doorway with a kindly inquisitive voice.

Levi deadpanned through his closed eyelids and tried to keep his breathing inconspicuous. _Alright_. His hips and ass were a little girly, he was short — he knew that. But he definitely did _not_ look like a fucking girl. Even from behind in the dark room.

"Uhhh...I..." Erwin faltered. His fingers flexed nervously against Levi's back, but then he yanked them out from under the shirt, realizing where they were. He shifted his arms awkwardly, trying to find a place to put them. He ended up setting them rigidly at his sides, the one closest to the wall coming to rest on Levi’s knee that was still crooked over his hip. His words were just as rigid as his posture.

"No...This is Levi. He's the one I told you about. From art class."

"Mm." The silence that stretched between Erwin and his father was tense and awkward. Levi wished, not for the first time, that he could teleport himself away from situations that he didn’t want to be in. "...Boyfriend?" Erwin’s father asked carefully.

Levi clenched his jaw, fighting to keep his breathing even though he knew his act was starting to slip.

Erwin let out an awkward laugh, his huffing breath rustling the hair on the top of Levi's head. Levi could almost feel the warmth of the embarrassed flush that Erwin would probably be sporting if Levi were to look up to see. He knew Erwin was trying to keep his composure, but the whole situation was so fucking awkward and getting increasingly more so. He was surprised Erwin even managed to sound as 'eloquent' as he had.

"No..." The word that came from Erwin didn't sound as sure and dismissive as Levi thought it would come out. It was more hesitant than when his dad had asked if Levi was his fucking girlfriend. "...Not...at the moment?"

Levi's brain shut off faster than a computer that had had its power cord yanked from the socket. Another unsettling bout of silence took over the stiff air in the room and Levi was pretty sure he had stopped breathing altogether. Had he heard him right?

‘Not at the moment’? ‘ _Not at the moment’?_ What the _fuck_ did that mean?

He tightened his fingers where they were gripping Erwin's shirt and flexed his toes against the tops of Erwin's feet. The answering fidgets back let him know that Erwin knew he was awake and listening now, though it certainly didn't help the awkwardness of the situation.

The next silence almost broke Levi but Erwin's father just let out quiet sigh that made Erwin relax beneath him. Levi wondered if they were smiling. Did Erwin get his soft smile from his dad?

"Do you two want take-out or something, or did you already eat?"

Erwin brushed his fingers against Levi's side that faced the wall. Levi drew a small silent checkmark into Erwin’s side, hoping his approval got through to him. "Yeah, take-out sounds good. Thanks," Erwin replied.

Erwin's father muttered his agreement and walked out of Erwin's room, shutting the door behind him. The breath that left Erwin was loud with disbelief and relief. " _God_ ," he groaned at himself, tilting his head back and slapping a hand over his eyes. When he looked back down, Levi's chin was resting on his chest.

His face was flushed from his nose to the tips of his ears and his hostile glare had Erwin's eyes wavering in confusion.

"What...?"

Levi tried to control his voice but when it squeezed from his throat it sounded peeved and accusatory.

" _What the fuck is 'not at the moment' supposed to mean?_ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S. I am aiming to post a gay domestic Eruri Halloween oneshot by the 31st (no promises on that time tho ;~;). So look out for that if you want to see some gay dads and cute babs (Eren, Mikasa, Armin) in costumes (*´∇｀*)


	10. National Embarrass Levi Into Confessing His Gay Feelings Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, hello~ I think you guys should just expect me to take forever to post from no on (although you probably already do anyways lol >>;;;) I took a mental health break, and I'm doing a bit better now, but still not the best. I am writing when I can, but the holidays are getting more and more busy with work bleh. I did take a mini-vacation to Japan though! So that was nice uwu
> 
> I also posted that Halloween fic (though it was more around Thanksgiving shhh), so check that out if you want! (It can totally lowkey be NPLH Eruri when they're older hehe). In a non-SnK update, I posted a KnB KagaKuro oneshot as well~
> 
> I'm still not totally sure if I like this chapter, but some parts I am fond of, so I hope you all enjoy the update too! And yet again there's a stupid title lol :B

“Are you going to tell me what happened yet?”

Levi looked up sullenly from his breakfast and met the expectant glance from his nanna. He shrugged at her, directing his attention back to the feast laid out before him: a cheese, spinach, and sundried tomato omelette, a bowl of various fruit, a glass of juice, a platter of crackers and cheese spread, another similar platter of veggies and a homemade ranch dip, and slices of toast—crisp and savory from the thick layer of hummus spread over the top.

It wasn’t really out of the norm; his nanna always made too much food, always pestering him to eat every time his stomach rumbled. He was still too skinny, she always reminded him. If he let himself believe it, he would have thought that she was the witch from Hansel and Gretel, trying to fatten him up before the deep fry.

She’d obviously noticed the purple bruises on his face—angry and still a little swollen when he had been greeted by her at the door—though he was relieved when she had only asked him a few times about what had caused them. She didn’t pry too hard, trying to wait for Levi to tell her himself; it was probably because if she pressed, she knew Levi would get angry and aggressive like he always did. She didn’t so much mind the outbursts, but she didn’t want to push Levi into a negative state of mind if she could help it.

He finished his omelette and slice of toast, rinsing his mouth with a big gulp of juice. More to have something to fiddle with than because he was still hungry, he plucked a bunch of grapes from the bowl in front of him. Levi leaned back in his chair, knees pressing into the table to tip the chair onto two legs. The grapes popped into his mouth one at a time.

“Some asshole decided to provoke me,” he admitted blandly, scowling when some of the juice from his last grape squirted out of his mouth and onto his chin and shirt. He strained to reach for his napkin on the edge of the small table, grabbing it only barely between two fingers. With a wrinkle scrunching his nose, he cleaned up his mess, rubbing at his shirt and pressing the temporary stain further between the fibers.

“Did he beat you up or were you part of the fight?” she asked wearily. She leaned forward to grab a few crackers, spreading the cheese thinly over the top. Her many bracelets tinkled together with her movements, soft and soothing like the wind chimes hanging from the porch awning outside.

“Fight,” he muttered reluctantly. “He threw the first punch, though. So I guess that’s an improvement,” he continued with an indifferently blank face.

His nanna sighed. The sound agitated Levi more than he thought it would—an accidental nudge to an already angry nerve. It wasn’t her fault. He’d been in this house before; he’d been at this same table, saying these same words, hearing that same sigh. The majority of those times, the fights were Levi’s fault. Sassed the wrong person. Hurled the first insults. Threw the first punch.

This was different.

“He’s been bullying me since the first day of school!” Levi snapped, thumping his chair loudly back down on the floor. His eyes became vicious as though the offender were sitting across from him at that very moment. “He destroyed my stuff, including a full fucking sketchbook. He constantly bothered me and threatened me. He physically pushed me around. He pissed me off intentionally and came after me. How the fuck am I supposed to react to that? Just fucking roll over and submit like a fucking dog?”

Nanna’s eyes widened slightly. She wasn’t surprised by his vocabulary; the crass words had always been used around her, even before Levi had become a teenager. Maybe she was surprised that Levi had a real reason to be so hot-headed this time. Her eyes narrowed at him.

“Have you been taking your antidepressants?”

Levi slapped his hands down on the table and scoffed loudly at her. “What the fuck’s that got to do with an asshole making my life a worse Hell than it already is?”

His nanna wasn’t phased by his insolence. “ _Have you been taking your antidepressants_ ,” she repeated, deliberately more slow and annunciated. Levi grit his teeth. He heard her the _first time_ , he wasn’t deaf.

“ _No_. I haven’t been taking my fucking antidepressants.”

“Levi, you can’t just stop taking medications like that on your own. They can worsen your symptoms, especially for teens your age. I can tell you’ve been more agitated lately.”

“They weren’t doing anything anyways,” he retaliated petulantly.

“You have to give them time, Levi. They’re not going to work overni—”

“I don’t have time to waste on something that isn’t going to work. It’s not going to _magically fix my problems_ ,” Levi sneered with a haughty wave of his hand. “They’re not going to _give me a new family_. Or _bring mom back_. Or _give me friends_. Or _get rid of my record_.”

“ _No_. But they’d help you be able to cope with things better and even out your moods. If it was up to me, I wouldn’t have you on medications like that at all. But you need the extra help it’d give you, since the other options we’ve tried didn’t do much to help y—”

“I’m going for a walk,” Levi interrupted curtly, foregoing asking for permission to be excused as he stood up abruptly. He turned around before Nanna could respond, though he knew in the back of his mind that she would readily let him go if it would calm him down.

Walking and running helped him. Drawing helped him. Watching movies helped him. Being with Erwin helped him. He didn’t want to cram pills down his throat for the rest of his life—even if they would make him even marginally better.

Levi hated feeling like he had to rely on something else for his wellbeing. He knew that he had to take something for his anxieties and depression, but that made him childishly want to refuse them even more. He liked to tell himself that he could fix things on his own, though he knew that time and time again that had failed. Time and time again he had proven that just thinking that he would get better wasn’t enough.

He stalked through the small house, his heavy footsteps rattling the blown-glass hummingbirds arranged in the small cabinet just outside the den. All the ornaments, crystals, and woven tapestries in this house were too bright for his eyes at that moment; he’d rather his world be in a dull and uninteresting grayscale. He didn’t want excitement, he wanted placidity.

He glanced at the hand-thrown vase from Peru sitting unassumingly on an antique side table—hiding the hole that had been punctured into the wall about two years ago. Levi snarled at it.

Snatching his phone and wallet from the shelf near the door, he heard his nanna shout at him, “Don’t forget your coat!”

She had bought him a new one for the winter before he had arrived at her house—always pampering and over-doting on him like the nosy grandmother she was. He yanked the coat from the closet, shoved his feet into the waiting pair of warm boots by the door (also new), and set out into the cold.

That was another thought that made Levi feel weird—foreign in his own body. This house had once been Their Home for many years. Many long, stressful years. But now Levi couldn’t help but call it Her Home.

He didn’t feel unwelcome there now, but it was strange to be away for so many months and to establish her little cottage as His House, in His Town. It was nice to have things and places of his own...but it might’ve been a little nicer to have things he could share.

Levi thought about Erwin.

He pulled his phone out from his pocket, bare fingers freezing in the cold air as he flipped it open.

No new messages.

He hadn’t heard from Erwin since he had left him at the bus stop the morning after his stupid fight with Nile. Erwin had given him a short one-armed hug and wished him a good trip, and then he was gone. It had been maybe a week since then.

That night before he left, they’d slept close again. Levi allowed himself to press into Erwin’s side, though he had arranged himself awkwardly in a way so the big oaf wouldn’t accidentally roll over onto his injuries.

Erwin hadn’t properly answered Levi’s aggressive question about what he had meant when he’d said that Levi wasn’t his boyfriend—at the moment. He told Levi they would talk about it after Winter Break, when they had both returned home. He told Levi he should sleep, rest up for his trip, let his bruises heal.

Levi had reluctantly done as Erwin had told him, though not without a punch to the arm that the blond rightfully deserved.

It turned out that he didn’t have any breaks or a concussion, or so Erwin’s father had concluded. The bespectacled man had deemed it alright to go about his business as usual with a standard aftercare procedure: rest, ice, pain meds, repeat. He’d taught Levi how to massage out the muscles of the terrible, bruised knot in his leg, though admittedly it had hurt like hell and Levi never wanted to try it again.

He really was a nice man, though. Levi was skeptical about him at first—that he’d make immediate assumptions and treat him like a delinquent—but he turned out to be pleasant and full of life. He didn’t judge Levi’s appearance on their first meeting, didn’t pry about his bruises or his resting bitchface that other adults always based his personality on (though honestly, that wasn’t that far from the truth). He had called Levi “feisty” though, which had made Erwin and his father laugh aloud at the reciprocating sneer directed back at him.

Just as he had suspected, Erwin and his father did look alike. The way they laughed was similar, hearty and joyful. They had the same wrinkles in their faces when they smiled.

Erwin’s stupid smile...that reminded Levi, he needed to try to scan those ruined sketches of Erwin and see if he could at least salvage them by redrawing them on the computer...

Levi felt around the outside of his new jacket, reaching into one of the large front pockets when his hand ran over the telltale rectangular lump. He pulled out an iPod—a brand new touch screen, just like Erwin’s. His old iPod was probably gone forever. Levi had loved that thing, and it made him all the more apprehensive about this new model. It _was_ useful for the apps and camera and all that extra junk they liked to put into everything nowadays, but he missed the nostalgic familiarity and simplicity of the classic click-wheel.

He got his music playing after a minute, still not really used to how the damn thing worked yet, and stuffed the earbuds into his ears. Levi wedged his hood out from under his jacket and pulled it over his head. His nanna had easily and skillfully fixed that awful tear; it hardly looked like the accident had happened at all now.

His walk was calming. There weren’t many people out that day, most likely because they were all packed into the city for last minute holiday shopping. His nanna lived just on the edge of the city, where it was a lot more peaceful and easygoing. Levi hated the city—hated the noise, and the crowds, and the hustle and bustle. Out here he would pass a person or two quietly taking a stroll, offering a polite nod.

Levi regretted not bringing a scarf with him; his neck and nose were freezing and he couldn’t so easily shove them into his coat pockets like he could to warm his hands. He bundled up a little tighter, huddling into himself.

His steps faltered—almost a trip if someone else had been witness to it—when a sharp _zing_ of a noise interrupted his music. The music continued on casually as if nothing had happened, and Levi attempted to do the same.

When it happened twice more, Levi became irritated. He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and yanked the iPod out of his pocket, fumbling with it for a moment until he got the screen to turn on.

He had notifications from Skype. He didn’t even remember signing onto Skype on this stupid thing. Who was even messaging him? He only had maybe four contacts.

He swiped angrily at the notifications bar. There were three messages from _Erwin Smith ( ･ิω･ิ)_.

**_He_ **

**_Hey dude_ **

**_Call me_ **

“Dude?” Levi questioned aloud. When the hell had Erwin ever called him “dude”? His response was simple.

**_???_ **

He panicked a little when the screen suddenly went blue and a cheery jingle played in his ear. He was receiving a video call from _Erwin Smith ( ･ิω･ิ)._ Crap, he didn’t even know how that would work on this thing; he’d only ever done normal calls and chats on the computer. Did the damn thing even have a front camera?

Levi reluctantly hit the green Accept button and was greeted by _Definitely Not_ _Erwin Smith ( ･ิω･ิ)._

“Hanji? What the hell?”

“LEVI!” they screamed in his ear; he yanked the phone further away from his face on instinct before he realized he would have to turn the volume on the headphones down instead. He cranked it all the way down to the lowest level.

“Hanji.”

“Levi!”

Levi sighed loudly. “Hanji...Why are you calling me? Did you need something?” _Did Erwin fall down a well?_ he almost sassed.

“Nooooo,” Hanji sang in his ear. He looked down at their smiling face in his hand and noticed the small box in the corner with their view of him in it. Levi didn’t bother to keep his face in the frame. “Can’t we just chat a little?”

“Are you on Erwin’s phone?”

“Yeah. So?”

“So where’s Erwin?”

Hanji sighed loudly and lazily looked around themself. There was a bustle behind them, waiters and trays; it wasn’t so immediately obvious that they were in a restaurant when all the noise was being filtered out by Erwin’s mic. “I dunno. He went to go to the bathroom and grab a drink from the front. But that was like five minutes ago and now I’m bored.”

“Maybe he’s taking a dump,” Levi suggested blandly. Hanji cackled.

“Yeah, or he got lost in there. Anyways, how are _yaaaa?_ ” Hanji looked at him expectantly through the screen.

“Cold,” Levi answered shortly, brushing off the seat of a park bench and thumping down onto it. “I’m outside.”

“Ahh, is it snowing there? I love the snow! There’s so much snow here, it’s crazy! They hafta have these big scary snow plows come down the street everyday—sometimes _twice_ a day! Just so people don’t get trapped in their cabins! We’re up at Erwin’s parents’ cabin, by the way. I wish ya coulda come with us, _ahhh, it’s so beautiful_. Petra hadta spend Christmas at home with her parents, I’m so _saaaad!_ We coulda done something romantic! But she’s watchin’ all my babies at home while my ‘rents are in Cancun, so I know they’re safe. _Pheeeeew_ , it’s such a relief! If no one could watch all of ‘em, I’d have to stay home!”

Levi opened his mouth to say something but Hanji barreled over him and kept talking. He sat back on the bench and let his iPod rest on his leg.

“Oh! I wanted to tell ya—the Smith’s cabin is so far up in the mountains that there's no real cell reception. There’s just a landline for emergencies, so that’s why he hasn’t messaged ya or anything. I know Erwin’s been worryin’ about ya worryin’ about him not messagin’ ya. But it’s fine, he’s just—”

Levi sighed through his nose, the steam from his hot breath curling up around his face like smoke. Hanji talked way too fast. And way too much. He didn’t know why he hadn’t hung up yet; it would be easy to—just a tap of the finger away. Maybe he was just bored enough that he was somewhat willing to talk to another person. Hopefully Erwin would hurry his literal ass up and come back soon so he could talk to him instead.

“It’s not snowing much here. Just cold as fuck.”

“Well that’s lame!” Hanji exclaimed with a frown. “Ya shoulda come with us, but I guess Erwin already knew ya were visitin’ your grams. It was kind of a last minute trip, actually, but it’s sooooo worth it!”

“I’m sure it’s nice up there.”

“It is! The cabin is really nice. It’s in the middle of nowhere and it’s kinda plain but it’s got this real charm about it. There’s a little river out back to fish during the summer too, but it’s frozen over now. Can’t go ice skating though...I learned that the hard way,” Hanji ended with a snort of laughter.

A cabin in the middle of nowhere sounded really nice, actually (putting all thoughts of horror movies aside). Now Levi was starting to feel a little jealous… He wanted to spend time with Erwin out there, keeping cozy on a couch under a blanket while it quietly snowed outside. He shivered a little on the bench, crossing his legs together to keep some heat between them.

“Why don’t ya sit at our table at lunch sometime?” Hanji asked out of the blue. Levi looked down at the iPod in his lap. He shifted it up so he wasn’t given himself as much of a double chin and looked at them through the small camera lens.

“Why do you even want me to?” Levi asked blandly. “I’m not into fucking sports. I don’t even talk to any of you guys.”

“Well you’re talkin’ to me right now, ain’tcha?” Hanji retorted playfully, tongue sticking out slightly from between their self-satisfied, smiling teeth. “And ya talk to Erwin. And I know ya talk to Petra sometimes, she’s pretty fond of ya.”

Levi was taken a little aback at that. “Why’s that?” he asked. How anyone could be fond of him was beyond his comprehension.

“Well she thinks kinda the same as me. You’re cool. And you’re nice when ya want to be,” Hanji said with another snorty sort of laugh. “You’re kinda quiet, but someone’s got to the quiet one, right?” Hanji laughed louder then, as if to prove their point.

“None of us know ya as well as Erwin does, but I don’t see why any of the rest of us wouldn’t like ya. Well I guess apart from Nile, but he doesn’t matter,” Hanji said, waving their hand in front of their face.

Levi paled at that. He’d almost forgotten that Hanji and the rest of them had all been there to witness the fight between him and Nile. “You’re not mad about that?” Levi asked with a clenched jaw. “He’s your friend, isn’t he?” He didn’t know why any of them would take his side when _he_ was the outsider compared to Nile.

“Well I wasn’t besties with him ever or anything. If he _was_ a bestie, I might’ve gotten kinda upset, but really...he’s had that comin’ to him for a long time. I hope you knocked some damn sense into him.”

Levi smirked a little at that, a quiet laugh huffing from his nose. He was relieved. He never thought that he’d care so much about what other people thought of him, that he’d be worried that they’d hate him.

It was different this way. He wasn’t trying to keep on good terms with a bunch of assholes so he would have less trouble. He was trying to keep on good terms with good people—people that could potentially be his friends, people he might want to actually keep around.

“Well, anyways. That little confrontation didn’t make Erwin think any lesser of ya. He’s always talked highly of ya, Levi.”

Warmth rushed to Levi’s face, his skin suddenly feeling itchingly nervous. Erwin talked about him? What did he say? What good did he even have to tell? Did he tell his friends bad things? Did he talk about stuff behind his back? He couldn’t have said that much, could he?

“He talks about me?” Levi managed to quietly ask.

Hanji laughed at him. Levi thought that maybe Hanji was laughing because they had just been pulling his leg, but then they said, “ _Boy, does he fuckin’ talk about ya_.”

That just made Levi flush even hotter. Even when Erwin wasn’t even there, he was still so embarrassing. Hanji leaned into Erwin’s phone and whispered, gossiping secrets to him even though no one could even hear them in the busy restaurant.

“He thinks you’re really smart,” they said. “And really talented with your art.” Levi opened his mouth to object, but then Hanji said the unthinkable. “Erwin thinks you’re _cute_ too.”

“No, he doesn’t,” Levi mumbled immediately, his face going as red as the Christmas stocking his nanna had hanging up for him over the fireplace.

Hanji giggled. “He likes snugglin’ with ya.” A little maniacal grin pulled their lips over their teeth. “How _gay_.”

“Oh my god, shut _up_ ,” Levi groaned, putting a hand over his eyes. He ignored the woman walking past him with her dog, and the concerned look she glanced over at him; he probably looked like he was beyond constipated, or at least trying to achieve spontaneous self-combustion. Hanji was even worse than Erwin at getting him flustered, Jesus Christ. He suddenly knew why he hadn’t tried to talk to them before.

Hanji did a little happy dance with their shoulders as they giggled merrily at him. “So,” they said next, still bouncing a little in their excitement. “Did ya tell him yet?”

He looked down at Hanji in his hand and watched them shift around in their seat. Erwin’s phone was right under their face, giving Levi a wonderful shot straight up their nose. When they looked back at him, Levi raised an eyebrow. “Tell him what?”

“That you like him. _Duh_.” Levi’s eyes went wide. He opened his mouth, then frowned and closed it again.

“I don—”

“Come _ooonnn_ ,” Hanji groaned at him impatiently. “I know you like him! He told me you came out to him too!” At Levi’s answering sneer they hurriedly added, “Don’t get mad! Your secret’s safe with me, locked up in my secrets chest.” Hanji tapped a finger to their temple and nodded sagely.

“But I’ve always kind of known,” they went on. “I’ve got this little Gaydar Alarm, see. It goes DINGDINGDING!” Levi cringed at their loudness, trying to turn down the volume again but the call refused to let him turn it any lower lest he cut out all audio. “Like that,” Hanji continued without missing a beat, “when something gay is happening. I can smell it. I _smell the gay on you_. That’s how us queers find each other.” They give him a borderline creepy smile and matter-of-fact nod.

“What, are you sniffing me out now like that giant weirdo?”

“No,” Hanji laughed. “Mike has his own thing goin’ on. I don’t even know what that is, to be honest...” Hanji looked away as if they had run out of things to talk about. Levi knew that thought was hoping for too much, especially when they looked back at him expectantly again. “But did you tell him? He wouldn’t say anything to me, but he let me know all that other stuff—how _meeeeaannn_ ,” Hanji wailed, a sadly offended hand pressing to their chest.

Levi didn’t answer them again, choosing to roll his eyes instead.

“Ah!” Hanji perked up, their sudden outburst startling Levi to attention. “I see him, he’s coming back.” Levi shifted up on the bench, staring into the iPod screen and gripping it hard, willing the camera on the other side of the conversation to direct its attention to Erwin’s visage. Levi admitted to himself that he had actually enjoyed talking to Hanji to some extent, but he had talked to Erwin’s wacko friend long enough. He wanted to talk to Erwin himself.

Then Hanji smirked and looked at Levi again. “Should I tell him for ya?”

“What?” Levi asked, suddenly going rigid. He wished with his entire soul that he could teleport through that little screen to where Hanji was. They were going to do something stupid, he knew it. He just knew it.

“Should I tell him you like him? He’s almost _heeeere_ ,” they sang.

“ _NO!_ No, Hanji, don’t you fucking dare!” Levi yelled at his iPod. A murder of crows scattered from the trees nearby to escape the absolute panicked rage that exploded off of him. _No, no, no,_ Levi chanted in his head. _This stupid bitch, they better not._

“Whaaaat? Why not? _Erwiiin!_ ”

“Hanji!” Levi barked as a warning. God, he wished he could just reach out and strangle them.

“Erwin, I need to tell ya something!” Hanji yelled across the restaurant. Levi thought he could hear Erwin’s answering shout of “What?”

“HANJI! HANJI, DON’T TELL HIM ANYTHING! DON’T SAY A FUCKING THING! I’LL TELL HIM MYSELF!”

Levi sat there on the bench, petrified. _Goddammit_. _Goddammit all_. He scowled at himself and glared at Hanji. If only looks could kill…

“Ohohohoho,” Hanji chortled cruelly. They smiled wide at him. “I didn’t think I’d get ya to say it so easily.”

“I’m going to fucking kill you.”

“Haha! Good luck,” Hanji teased. “You can’t kill me when you’re so tiny behind the screen like that.” Hanji poked their finger at the camera lens. “You’re so cute. Like a grumpy little fishy in a fishbowl.” They made a fish face at him and Levi didn’t know whether to laugh incredulously at how strange they were, or to get more angry that they had tricked him into saying he that he would confess to Erwin. “Awww, I miss my fish children,” Hanji sighed.

“Hanji, what are you doing with my phone?” Finally Levi heard Erwin’s voice again, and he sighed with relief. That voice—deep and smooth and familiar—made a peculiar sense of calm wash over him.

“Talkin’ to Levi!” Hanji replied cheerily back to Erwin. The image on Levi’s iPod blurred and suddenly Erwin was looking up at him from his lap, the phone on the other end snatched back by its rightful owner. Erwin smiled at him and Levi returned the gesture with a quiet wave and an erratic stutter of his heartbeat.

He was flustered now. He and Hanji had just been talking behind his back about how Levi liked him and now it felt like he was keeping an even bigger secret from him. Before, it hadn’t seemed like a secret at all. It had just been a piece of information for Levi to think about himself, that no one else needed to know. But now it was out in the open, floating around in the air to be seen by anyone clever enough to spot it. At least with Hanji. Maybe with Erwin too, but he still didn’t know explicitly what Erwin knew and how he felt, going by the last time they had seen each other.

“Good to see you,” Erwin greeted him. He looked like he couldn’t help but smile again, flashing Levi a bit of his perfect teeth. But then he frowned, eyebrows annoyed. “Dammit, Zoe. You wasted my battery.”

“Sorrryyyy!” Levi heard them cry back at him. Erwin must’ve actually been pissed at them for once, as he hardly ever called them by their last name—even on the football field. Erwin turned his head to accept the meal that the waiter had set in front of him.

“Shit, that bruise is still on your chin?” Levi asked, a little embarrassed as he gave Erwin another closer look through the pixelated image.

Erwin looked back at him and rubbed at the spot with his fingers. He still smiled at Levi. “You’ve got some bony elbows,” he replied with a chuckle. Levi wanted to say something back, wanted to talk to Erwin, but he was interrupted again.

“I’ve got to go, Levi, I’m sorry. My phone’s at 3% battery, so it’s going to die any second now. Thanks to _someone,_ ” he said, shooting a glare over the top of his phone again. “We will be at a family friend’s cabin for the next couple nights, so I’ll have service there. There isn’t any up at ours.”

Levi nodded. He didn’t want Erwin to hang up. He was almost in the mood to throw a tantrum about it like a little kid, but he settled with doing it in his head rather than on the sidewalk to retain his composure. “I’ll message you later tonight, okay?” Erwin told him. “I promise.”

“Okay.”

“I _promise_.”

“ _Okay!_ ” Levi half-shouted.

Suddenly Hanji tried to wrestle the phone from Erwin; the struggle was short, the hard glare sent toward Hanji making them stop failing. Even so, Levi could tell their hand was still on the phone, their finger covering part of the lens. When Erwin’s grip didn’t let up they just leaned their head over the camera to yell “Erwin misses y—!”

The call dropped.

Levi was mistaken earlier when he thought he needed a scarf. His ears and neck were aflame, and even though no one was around to see him he put his face in his hands.

His fingers were cold, soothing his burning skin. He never in his life thought that anything would ever embarrass or fluster him this badly. He was used to keeping a stony exterior, a get-the-fuck-away-from-me vibe, a touch-me-and-you-die glare.

What the hell had even happened to him?

That stupid blond. That stupid blond with the thick eyebrows and pretty blue eyes. That stupid blond with the deep laugh and the warm embrace. _That stupid fucking blond_. That’s what had happened.

Erwin had turned him into some mushy gay with a schoolgirl crush, and he would never, ever forgive him for it.

Levi sat there on the bench for a while, thinking entirely too much about what was going to happen when he went back home. What would happen when he saw Erwin again? He fidgeted with his hands, picked at his nails, pinched his numb fingertips.

He stood up. It was almost lunch time. His nanna hadn’t messaged him since he had left—she was giving him space—but Levi also figured that she would be expecting him back at around this time so she could stuff him full with more food.

He decided to walk a bit further first. The little shopping center they always went to was about a mile away and he wanted to pick up a few things before he went home.

 

* * *

 

Levi wiped his forehead on his sleeve, filthy with sweat and plaster dust. His hands were flecked with the same dust, fingers rough from smears of drying spackle. He really needed a damn shower.

“I can’t believe this hole has been here this long and you never did anything about it,” Levi grumbled. He leaned forward to rest his arms on his knees, where he sat on the floor. He gratefully accepted the mug of tea that was handed down to him when his nanna came back into the parlor.

“I’d nearly forgotten it was there, actually,” she replied, taking a sip from her own steaming cup. Levi wanted to use the nice china cups here—like the delicate one in his nanna’s hands—but his own hands were filthy, so he settled for the mug she had gotten from a breakfast diner that didn’t exist anymore.

“Well, it’s pretty obvious now,” Levi complained, tilting his head back to look at his handiwork.

Fixing a hole in the wall hadn’t turned out to be that difficult of an endeavor, but the process didn’t come without a good deal of effort. He’d had to cut a square around the hole to make an even _bigger_ hole (which had been nerve-wracking) so he could patch in a completely new square of drywall.

The spackle was more of a mess than he had anticipated. It liked to stick to things it wasn’t supposed to and blended unevenly until Levi got the hang of the drywall knife—sculpting had never been his forte (even if he was using an even surface at the moment). Even worse, the bright white of the filler that spread far over the patched wall was horrendously obvious against its light gray background.

All that was left to do was give it a little sanding, primer, and paint, and it would be hidden forever. But he’d have to wait for the spackle to dry first, and he didn’t have a clue how long that would take—possibly days—so he waited with impatiently jittery nerves.

“Please tell me you have leftover paint for this room,” Levi grumbled, taking another a sip of his tea and sighing into his mug. He still couldn’t make his own tea as well as his nanna; he didn’t have her secret ingredient (which he refused to believe was “love”).

“I’m not sure, dear. You’d have to look around in the garage.” She glanced leisurely around her decorated room. “It could use a new paint job, though. Maybe a nice _sage green,_ ” she suggested with a lazy wave of her hand.

“I am _not_ painting the whole parlor. I don’t have fucking time for that.” Levi looked away from her when she gave him a little warning glance.

He tightened his fingers around his mug, lacing them through the handle and cradling the ceramic against his lips. His fingertips brushed the knuckles of his right hand. The middle knuckle was still a little fucked up from punching that hole in the wall; it still popped whenever he bent it. His jaw clenched, teeth creaking against each other.

Why did he have to be so stupid and angry all the time?

“Fucking stupid,” he muttered to himself.

“Pardon me?” his nanna directed at him with another warning glare.

Levi waved one of his hands dismissively. “Not you. I was just talking to myself.”

They both took another quiet sip of their tea and Levi licked his lips, tasting the rich blend of herbs that clung to them. He met his nanna’s eyes again. “Do you want me to try to stop cussing around you?” he asked.

His nanna’s eyebrows raised into her short, feathered hair. “First the wall, and now this?” she asked skeptically. “What’s gotten into you, Levi?”

Levi didn’t miss the smile behind his nanna’s teacup. He shrugged at her. She set her cup down on the table when Levi set his on the floor and smiled more openly at him this time, her eyes soft.

“Honey, I should wash your mouth out with soap.” She paused to chuckle at Levi’s face pinched in disgust. “But if you stay out of trouble, I’ll take the swearing any day.”

“Fair enough.”

She gestured a finger to Levi’s bruised face and continued, “Hopefully that little incident was the only one.”

“It was.”

“Good. I’m glad that you aren’t getting in fights every week. And if I’m not mistaken, you’ve made some friends too? And you’re grades have been the best I’ve ever seen them. That’s really good, Levi. I’m so proud of you.”

Levi flushed a little and stood up, joints stiff from sitting for so long. “It’s not a big deal.”

He came over to the loveseat she was perched on when she beckoned him over. Levi sat down next to her and didn’t struggle (too much) when she pulled him closer with an arm around his shoulders. He allowed himself to be embraced by that one-armed hug, allowed her to guide his head to rest on her shoulder. The comfort that settled over him was warm and loving—though it was much different from when it came from Erwin.

“It is a big deal, hun,” she said, carding her fingers gently through his hair. “These are big steps of improvement! Huge!”

Levi’s chest buzzed warm and alive. Somewhere deep down, he couldn’t help but feel a little proud of himself too.

“Do you think...Mom would’ve been proud of me?” he asked quietly.

He closed his eyes when he felt a soft kiss press into his hair. “No doubt in my mind,” Nanna replied. “She would’ve been proud with average marks and if you came back home every night. She would’ve been proud if you ate one vegetable a week or drew her your best stick figure or dressed yourself everyday.” Levi smiled to himself, though he could feel the sadness tugging down on it. A small pang of anger joined in the task of pulling the smile from his face. “She would always be proud of you, Levi. You know she loved you very much.”

Taking a deep breath he closed his eyes and relaxed against his nanna. She smelled floral—rose and apple blossom...maybe a little jasmine. There was also that undernote of the ever-prevalent smokiness of incense that clung to her clothes. What would his mother smell like, he wondered.

He wished he had been old enough to remember her. He was five years old when she passed, just young enough that his brain could hardly recall the details of his earlier memories. Levi liked looking through the few photos of her that his nanna had. She looked as though she could uplift any spirit, a softness and loving glow about her in every moment captured on film. She had lifted Levi’s, he could tell. There wasn’t a single baby picture with her where he wasn’t smiling.

Oh, times had changed.

“You haven’t told me about that friend of yours yet.”

“Who?” Levi asked, though he knew precisely to whom she was referring.

“You told me you went to a friend’s party,” she clarified. “Or was that a fib?” she asked, giving him a little nudge. He nudged her back.

_Fuck that party._

“It wasn’t a lie. And...he’s just...some guy,” he mumbled with an attempt at acting casual. He couldn’t help but notice how warm his cheeks felt. Why did he feel so nervous now?

“From school?”

“Yeah. He’s in my art class.”

“Oh! Is he an artist like you?”

Levi laughed a little. “Not really. He’s not the best at art, but he tries. His abstract stuff is really nice, but he can’t draw still life worth a damn. Good with color, though.”

“What else does he do?” she pried.

“He’s on the football team. Varsity quarterback. I’ve talked a bit with some of his teammates, but I don’t hang out with any of them.” His nanna looked down at him. He looked back up and furrowed his brows. “What?”

“I wouldn’t have expected you to befriend the jocks,” she said with a smile.

Levi tutted a short noise at her. “Me neither,” he admitted with another quiet scoff. “This...hm... _person_ named Hanji likes me a lot for some reason. Talks my damn ear off whenever they find an opportunity.”

“‘They’?”

“They’re genderqueer. Their girlfriend is pretty nice—Petra. She’s on cheer. I might...actually want to hang out with her sometime...I don’t know.” Levi shrugged and shifted further away from his nanna, stiff from leaning over, and settled against the arm of the loveseat. He scrunched his legs up on his side until she pulled them back to rest over her lap.

“There’s also Mike. He’s fucking _huge_. Tall, I mean. He’s really smart too, but he doesn’t talk a whole lot.”

“Does your friend have a name?”

“Yeah, it’s Erwin,” he said. “Smith.”

“Is he nice to you, like his friends?”

Levi flushed. Erwin always drilled it into Levi’s head that he cared about him. He took him to lunch, he had him over at his house more times than Levi could count, he invited him to things. He came over whenever Levi asked, even times when he had been busy. He took care of him when he was feeling low. He had held him and let him cry against him. He laughed with him. He smiled at him.

“Yeah,” was all he replied.

“That’s wonderful. It’s good to know that someone is showing you kindness.” Levi didn’t look up to see the little glance his nanna sent his way. “What does he look like?” she asked next, a small smile pulling at her lips. She tried to hide it behind another sip of tea.

Levi pulled a face at her. “I don’t know?” he replied, trying not to act as flustered as he felt. “He’s tall. Over six feet.”

“Wow,” his nanna interjected.

“Yeah. And like I said, he’s on the football team so he’s...fit.” _He’s got a fucking nice body, and an ass I’d like to grab,_ Levi refrained from telling her. “He’s blond. Not like bleached Barbie-blonde, like almost sandy blond, I guess. He looks kind of older. Thick eyebrows.” Levi closed his eyes and the image of the person in mind came into vivid color behind his eyelids. He sighed quietly. “He’s got the bluest fucking eyes I’ve ever seen. And a nice smile. If I can fix that drawing I was working on, I’ll show you. It’s doodles of him...” he trailed off when he glanced up and saw how his nanna was looking at him.

“What?” he asked defensively.

She smiled at him. “You like this boy, don’t you?”

“No—” His nanna gave him The Look again.

“Okay, maybe I—” The Look.

“Fine!” Levi shouted. “I like him! I like him, I like him, I like him! _God_.”

What the hell was today? National Embarrass Levi Into Confessing His Gay Feelings Day?

“Does he know you like boys?”

Levi groaned at her. “ _Yeah_.”

“What does he think about it?”

“He doesn’t care, he...said he likes guys too.”

“And does he know that you like him?”

Levi looked away from her. Honestly if his face got any hotter it would be in a puddle on the goddamn floor.

“Maybe? I don’t know. I haven’t...told him or anything. He kinda...acts like it sometimes? But he hasn’t said anything either, so I don’t know! God, no more questions—I’m almost seventeen and you’re making me feel like a _fifth-grade girl._ ”

His nanna was laughing at him. “Alright, alright,” she placated. “I’ve interrogated you enough. Go wash up, and I’ll start preparing for dinner.”

Levi grumbled some more under his breath and took up his nanna’s tea cup from the table. He brought it to his lips to take a sip but it was lifted away from him when his nanna took it from his fingers. “Don’t drink that, dear. I put a splash of brandy in mine.”

“ _Nanna_ ,” he scolded her. “Some influence _you_ are.”

She took a sip despite his words and directed a motherly purse of her lips at him. “When you are twenty-one and have a little more self-control, you can put brandy in your tea if you want to. You don’t want to break your streak of sobriety, do you?”

The clenching of Levi’s jaw was a dead giveaway to the truth. His nanna looked a little weary at him again and sighed through her nose. “How many times?” she asked.

Levi wasn’t actually all that upset when he replied, “Just once.” It was the truth, and though he had drank way too much that night, just _once_ in that amount of unsupervised time was a feat he hadn’t even thought he could accomplish himself. “It was at that party. And I felt like shit about it afterwards.”

She put her hand to his shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “That’s alright. It was a slip-up, it happens.” Levi offered her a half-assed smile. “I still trust you to make your own decisions,” she assured.

Her gentle hand pushed him toward the hallway. “Now go shower, dear; don’t make me decide that one for you. You smell like a woodworker’s locker room.”

Levi sniffed at his shirt and scowled. She was right.

He couldn’t get to the shower fast enough.

 

* * *

 

It was already 10:57 at night and Erwin hadn’t messaged Levi like he had _promised_ he would. He’d even said it twice. 

“ _I promise_ ,” Levi mocked aloud to himself.

He was sitting by himself in the den, the whole house dark save for the light of the desk lamp in front of him. His nanna had already gone to bed a while ago, telling him not to stay up too late and leaving him with a fresh cup of evening tea.

Levi decided to keep himself busy while he was there at her house, since there wasn’t much else for him to do. He chose to tackle cleaning out the den closet as his next project. Years of old receipts and useless bits of junk were only the first layer of the mess.

He’d found high school memorabilia from the 80’s and a toy bank he hadn’t seen since he was maybe six years old. There was even a crumpled paper diploma from Levi’s graduation from kindergarten, complete with his name handwritten on the line at the bottom—though truthfully, half the letters hardly resembled anything that could be found in the alphabet at all. He was surprised his nanna hadn’t framed the stupid thing and put it on display somewhere like all his old, embarrassingly terrible artwork.

There was a thick photo album wedged between the back wall and a box of tax filings. It was only big enough to have one photo per page, but it was thicker than the ancient encyclopedia with the half-torn spine that lay on the shelf above it. Only about a quarter of the pages looked filled. When he yanked it out, he saw the cover—a periwinkle blue with Winnie the Pooh and Piglet having a friendly picnic under a tree. Seeing the image sparked something in Levi’s memory, though he couldn’t recall exactly what it was.

The first page made him breathe out a quiet laugh. He closed the album and took a seat in the large desk chair, enveloping himself in the warm light of the desk lamp. He opened it again.

It was a picture of him. He must have been in first grade—sometime around then; there were no labels or dates when he flipped the page over. He was glaring at the camera, but it was a playful sort of scowl, like a child imitating a pirate. His hair was so long and shaggy—he couldn’t even remember his hair ever being that unruly. Levi remembered the bright Doraemon jumper he was wearing and wondered quietly what had happened to it.

He turned the pages slowly, the plastic covers sticking from years of being pressed together. He peeled them apart, realizing that the next ten or so pictures had probably been taken by him. All they were were blurry shots of people's feet, one of a little white dog, one of a stuffed lion he used to sleep with every night. There was one of half his nanna’s face, and another blurred photo of his father that he turned past without a second glance.

The last couple were from a trip to the zoo. Levi frowned when he looked at them, taken again from an adult’s steady-handed perspective.

He was smiling.

But it wasn’t just him. There were two more smiles beside him.

There was a boy on his one side, sandy-brown hair and fierce gray eyes like his own. On the other side, an energetic girl with green eyes, red hair tied up in pigtails. The photo caught her halfway into a jump, her arms showing as blurred arches of excitement.

He could remember flashes of them, only single frames of a long winding film reel. For some reason the most vivid memory was sitting with them in the far corner of their school’s field, drawing in the dirt with sticks and eating a fruit leather that he could recall the taste of but not the name.

Names…

Fuck, why couldn’t he remember their names? He should be able to remember, but he couldn’t at the moment. They were right there on the edge of his memory, on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t grab them. He’d have to ask his nanna in the morning and hope she remembered something.

He felt stupid for forgetting such trivial information, but he hadn’t made a strict effort to remember much over the course of his earlier years—they weren’t years he cared to remember. He did know that he had only known those two for about a year, because in the next year after, his father had been arrested and he had been forced to move school districts to live with his useless stepmother.

Levi thought he could remember them crying, or at least just the girl, when he had to say goodbye to them. He had probably cried too. They’d given him a present—that awfully holographic CD case that he still used to lug his movies around.

Leaning his head back, he closed his eyes and tried to remember more about them—about the first friends he had ever had...the _only_ ones, up until recently.

He kept thinking about the zoo but dismissed the memories when he deemed them to be false. He couldn’t remember that far back, only recalling as much as he did because there was photographic evidence. At that point, he didn’t know if the memories were real or if his brain was fabricating them to go with the images he was looking at.

He closed the album and set it on the desk in front of himself. His mug was cold when he took a sip and he grimaced at it. The clock on the radio told him it was 12:02am, his tea rightfully cold after an hour of racking his brain for glimpses of his childhood friends.

Levi got ready for bed at his own leisure—rinsed his mug, brushed his teeth, washed his face. He changed into his flannel pajama bottoms and stared at the shirt in his hands.

In his rush to get his things together the morning of his departure, he had stuffed the shirt he had been wearing into his bag to put his clean one back on. He hadn’t washed it yet, but he hadn’t worn it since then either.

He stroked the material between his fingers, the ghastly face printed on the front fading into the black fabric. Was it bad that he wanted to keep it? Was it bad that he wanted to have something of Erwin’s for the times he found himself alone?

It might have been something like separation anxiety pulling at his chest when he smoothed his fingers over the hard, blocky letters of Rammstein’s name, but he didn’t dismiss the feeling entirely.

He had never felt that before—always disconnected from people, always with a standard degree of distance between them and himself. When he didn’t get to hang out with Erwin, he’d get a little bummed, he’d miss him. But it wasn’t the same when there was a real physical distance between them, even if it was only a few hours apart (perhaps more, depending on where the Smith’s cabin was).

Levi didn’t think about how stupid he was being when he pressed the shirt to his face and closed his eyes. He inhaled, pressing it further into his nose to pick up the faintest hint of Erwin’s customary Old Spice. The quiet noise he let slip—a whimper, a breath, a sigh—was an accident, but he couldn't help it. His fingers clenched into the fabric when he exhaled.

He slipped the shirt on after that, settling into bed with a disgruntled sigh. His room was still exactly how he had left it; the furniture was all still there, but the room was bare and bland—all the extras that made the room his were back home in the little cottage.

This bed was much smaller than the queen he had at home. It was the twin bed he had had all his life from the moment he left the crib; he remembered the stupid railings that had been attached to it when he was still small to make sure he wouldn’t roll off.

There wasn’t a bedside table, so he set his phone on the edge of the bed next to his pillow. He tucked his nose into the hem of Erwin’s shirt and glared at the hunk of plastic. Levi checked one more time before he went to sleep, but no, Erwin hadn’t fucking messaged him.

He went to sleep annoyed and exhausted.

 

* * *

 

Levi woke when his head started vibrating. The sound was loud and strange, seeming to emanate up from the floor through the springs in the mattress to resonate through his whole body. He groaned angrily and shoved his hand under his pillow to grab his buzzing phone. With a flick of his thumb, he flipped it open, not even bothering to open his eyes as he growled into the receiver.

“You better have a good fucking reason for me not to kill you,” Levi grumbled out, his voice gravelly, brain still not fully active. A quietly awkward laugh answered him.

“ _I’m sorry, Levi. Were you asleep?_ ”

“ _Yes_.”

“ _Sorry_ ,” Erwin apologized again. “ _I didn’t know if you were awake, but I thought I’d try once. I didn’t mean to wake you up this early_.”

Levi pulled his phone away from his head to blearily glance at the screen. 3:12am. He shoved it back into place over his ear and glared through his eyelids.

“ _We ended up getting to the cabin really late and I didn’t have much of a chance to charge my phone. Text messages don’t want to send on my phone now either. Isn’t technology wonderful?_ ” The little grumble in Erwin’s voice tugged at the corners of Levi’s lips. “ _I also waited a bit for Hanji to go to sleep, because I know they’d take my phone again._ ”

“Aren’t you tired?” Levi mumbled sleepily.

“ _Yeah, kind of_ ,” he said with another quiet laugh. “ _But I kept my promise, I told you I would_.”

“I don’t know, Erwin. You said ‘ _I’ll message you tonight_ ,’” Levi retorted, dropping his voice an octave to mimic Erwin. “You’re calling. And technically it’s tomorrow.”

“ _Negligible details_ ,” Erwin defended without seriousness.

“Tch.” Levi rolled over and fussed around until he was comfortable again. A soft, relaxed hum left him when he found the perfect arrangement of limbs and blankets. “I accidentally stole your shirt, by the way,” Levi mumbled, pressing his nose into the soft fabric. He was disappointed when all he could smell was the lavender soap from his nanna’s bathroom.

Erwin huffed a quiet laugh, sounding like he was smiling. “ _Are you wearing it?_ ”

Levi’s face warmed. “Yeah,” he admitted. “It’s comfy. Good luck seeing it ever again.”

“ _I don’t mind seeing you wearing it_ ,” Erwin replied casually. Levi swallowed thickly and opened his eyes to the dark room, the alarm bells in his head waking him into consciousness. Was Erwin...flirting with him?

“Y...Yeah?”

“ _Mhm_ ,” Erwin hummed. “ _It looks good on you._ ”

Levi didn’t say thanks. He didn’t say anything. What should he even say to that? They were both quiet for a minute after that, the silence both calming and terribly awkward.

“ _So how was the trip over?_ ” Erwin asked after a moment, changing the subject to something less embarrassing. Levi sighed quietly with relief.

“Awful. It was like three and half hours with all the stops. And I didn’t have my music.”

“ _Oh no! How did you even survive?_ ” Erwin teased lightly. If he was there, Levi would’ve shoved him.

“Honestly, I don’t know. But I think my iPod’s at school somewhere. Must’ve dropped it sometime between Nile calling me a fag and me trying to strangle him.” Levi laughed a little, letting Erwin know that he meant it as a joke; Erwin laughed back. “If someone found it, it’s probably gone forever,” Levi continued to grumble. “No fucking teenager would turn something like that in unless they were the goodiest of two shoes.”

“ _We can still look for it when we get back_ ,” Erwin reassured.

“Nanna already bought me a new one for Christmas. It’s a Touch like yours—pretty nice, but I still kind of want my old one back.”

“ _Well that was nice of her_.”

Levi scoffed quietly. “She’s spoiling me this year because I’m her ‘only child, who is almost an adult,’ or something stupid like that. Usually it’s just a thing or two, but I’ve already gotten a new iPod, two jackets, a pair of boots, and a tin of expensive tea. And it’s not even Christmas yet.”

“ _Hm. Yeah, you are a spoiled brat_ ,” Erwin agreed. He laughed when Levi cursed at him.

“Shut up. You’re probably getting a new car or a fucking private jet or some shit.”

Levi smiled when Erwin laughed loudly before he promptly smothered the sound, mindful not to wake anyone up. “ _Yeah, sure_ ,” he replied, heavy with sarcasm. “ _I’ll wake up in a couple days and there’ll be a G550 under the tree. They’ve probably got it hidden in a closet somewhere, should I go look?_ ” He laughed quietly again. " _C’mon, Levi. I know we have a big house, but we’re not_ that _loaded_."

“Yeah, whatever,” Levi dismissed.

Their quiet laughter gradually died down and the silence settled over them again, this time calm and comforting. Levi wished that Erwin was there next to him in bed—although in the twin, Erwin probably wouldn’t even fit by himself. If that was the case, they’d just have to huddle closer together...oh, what a shame.

There was rustling on Erwin’s end, his noises quietly disgruntled as he presumably laid down in bed. He could hear a faint snore or two in the background, Hanji still fast asleep even with all of the laughter.

“ _Can I ask you something?_ ” Erwin finally asked. The way Erwin’s voice sounded—quiet, sincere, unsure— made Levi’s heart jump.

“...What?”

“ _Well, I don’t know what you and Hanji were talking about this morning—or last morning, rather. They wouldn’t tell me as some sort of payback for I-don’t-know-what. But they kept asking me about...things...today. About you. I don’t know if any of it means anything coming from a shameless gossip like them. I don’t know if… I guess what I’m trying to ask is..._ ” Erwin scoffed at himself for tripping over his thoughts.

“What?” Levi prompted again. He couldn’t stop his heart from hammering in his throat. His palms were sweating horribly.

“ _Do you like me, Levi?_ ”

Levi’s throat constricted. Fuck. What was he—? How should—?

He let the silence stretch between them, trying to force his sluggish brain to work, dammit. He tried to play it cool; it was the only thing he could think to do. The “I don’t know what you’re talking about” card was the only one in his hand and he didn’t have many options.

“Of course I like you, dumbass,” he replied, staving off the shake that wanted to rattle his voice. “If I didn’t, I would’ve hung up on you for calling me at three in the fucking morning.”

“ _No, I mean romantically_ ,” Erwin clarified bluntly. Levi closed his eyes.

Fuck. Fuck this guy. Fuck this guy very unromantically with a cactus.

He wiped his hands on his sheets, gripped the phone tighter, tried to keep his heart from jumping out of his mouth and onto the floor.

“No...” Levi started. No? _No?_ He couldn’t say no. The answer was yes. Yes, yes, _yes!_ He was being stupid. What was he so afraid of? He kicked himself in the shin under the covers as a personal punishment, wincing at the sharp pain that radiated up his leg. “...No comment,” he finished.

Erwin let out a quiet breath. “ _No comment?_ ” he asked. Levi bit down on his tongue at how disappointed Erwin sounded at his answer. He knew it was a bullshit answer; it was a blank space on a yes or no question.

“ _Okay, if you—_ ” Erwin started at the same time Levi blurted out, “Wait, I meant—”

“ _Yes?_ ” Erwin asked when Levi muttered, “Nevermind.”

“ _No, go ahead_ ,” Erwin urged.

“It’s stupid,” Levi said. “Forget it.”

“ _You know..._ ” Erwin said back to him, the utterance so calm and quiet that Levi gave him his full attention. “ _If you did...I wouldn’t be angry or anything. I wouldn’t—_ ”

“Stop,” Levi protested. He closed his eyes at the sound of his own voice. Hearing his own quiet desperation made his heart clench and the back of his throat sting. It was too much. All of this was just too much.

Erwin didn’t say anything back.

Levi hated that. He hated the silence—hated that he couldn’t see Erwin’s face, what expression he was making, what emotion he was feeling. It put him in a defensive panic; he didn’t want this to end the same as it had with Nile, even if Erwin had just told him he wouldn’t be angry.

Wouldn’t be angry? What good did that tell Levi? It could make him feel plenty of other things besides angry, and that didn’t mean he would share his sentiments. It didn’t mean that he wouldn’t accept Levi’s feelings for him and just carry on like they always had—just as friends, and budding ones at that.

And it felt like their friendship was teetering on the edge again, ready to tip one way, ready to tip sharply back to the other. It all depended on what was said, what was done. And at that moment neither of them were doing anything—forcing themselves to live in the awful limbo between clarity and confusion.

Erwin wasn’t elaborating, wasn’t offering his side of things. He wanted Levi’s side, and Levi wasn’t giving that to him either. This wasn’t how Levi wanted this to go at all, and he was pretty sure it wasn’t how Erwin wanted it to go either.

He should just _tell him._ Telling the truth wasn’t that hard, especially when he was more certain than he had ever been about anything that yes, he liked Erwin. He really, really liked Erwin. He had never liked another human being so much in his life, and he was positive that he would never feel the same for another person for as long as he lived.

And he _hated_ it. It was _agonizing_.

“I thought you said we were going to talk about this shit when we got back,” Levi muttered finally, agitated and now more than a little irritated—mostly with himself. “But you’re springing it on me in the middle of the goddamn night when I’m half asleep at my fucking nanna’s house. I can’t fucking think right now, alright?”

He sighed loudly into the receiver. This whole awful situation was Hanji’s fault for prying—for filling Erwin’s head with ideas and for putting Levi on the defense. There was no fucking way Erwin didn’t know he liked him, with all the goddamn context clues in his words. Erwin just wanted that explicit evidence for himself; he wanted the exact words directly from Levi’s lips.

Levi would give them to him if he wasn’t so fucking terrified.

“ _You’re right, Levi. I apologize_.” Levi tried not to roll his eyes at Erwin apologizing for everything as usual. It was never his fault and he still apologized—sorry this, sorry that. “ _I’m being impatient, I didn’t mean to stress you out._ ”

“Whatever,” Levi huffed. “Can I go back to sleep now?”

“ _Are you angry with me?_ ” Erwin asked him. Levi relaxed at the softness of his voice—the worry. The rustle of Levi’s bedsheets was deafening in the silence of his old bedroom as he turned over to face the wall. He stared at the empty space next to him in bed and for some stupid reason he felt like he wanted to cry.

Maybe he would take his nanna up on her offer to get him new meds when he talked to her in the morning. He didn’t want to feel or act like this. It wasn’t getting him anywhere good, and it was taking Erwin down with him.

“No, I’m not fucking mad at you,” he mumbled into his pillow. “I’m tired.”

“ _Alright, I’ll let you get back to sleep._ ” Erwin paused for a moment. “ _Is it okay to call again on another day? If not, I’ll talk to you when you get home..._ ”

Levi buried his face into the cool crevice between the wall and his blankets. “You can call later. When I’m _awake_ ,” he replied with a sassy edge to his voice. Erwin chuckled quietly, though to Levi it sounded a little forced.

“ _Okay, will do…_ ” Erwin trailed off and the silence circled back on them again. “ _Wish you were here_ ,” he added gently, forcing a tense breath from Levi’s chest. He dug his fingers into his sheets and pressed his forehead into the wall. Did he mean ‘here’ as in ‘at the cabin’? Or just ‘here with me’?

“Yeah,” Levi sighed. “Me too...” He clenched his jaw against his buzzing anxiety. “Gnight.”

“ _Goodnight, Levi_.”

The call ended with a soft click. Levi kept staring hard at the wall.

He was so angry. He was _furious._ Why the fuck didn’t he just answer Erwin straight-up? He did so with everything else...but not this. This was so much different.

He should call Erwin back right now, he told himself. He should call him up, say it simply: “Yes, Erwin. I like you. I have liked you since the first day I came over to your house. I liked you when you came to mine. I liked you when you carried me home. I liked you when you laid down next to me and told me everything would be okay. I like you now. I like you.”

Erwin must have felt something for Levi too. Saying he wasn’t his boyfriend “at the moment” meant that there could be a possibility for the future, right? It could mean he either felt something...or he could possibly develop something for him in time. Levi had just put all thoughts of that so far out of his mind when Erwin said they’d talk about it later, that he’d forgotten they existed.

He was a stubborn, stubborn ass. If he’d just let himself believe something positive would come out of the situation, the issue would’ve been resolved before it ever saw the light. He just had two simple tasks now: tell Erwin he liked him, and ask if he liked him back. Simple.

His phone was already on the screen he needed, he just had to hit one button and he could get the whole thing over with. He could tell him and move on, whether it damaged their friendship or not.

Levi gripped his phone hard and cursed at the wall. He sat up too fast, his head spinning as he chucked his phone into the darkness. He heard it hit the closet door and clatter loudly to the floor, the battery popping out of the back to slide across the hardwood to hide underneath some piece of furniture. Levi didn’t bother to get up to look for it.

He threw himself back onto the bed, his chest heaving with his breaths. He was so angry, so disappointed with himself. He wasn’t a fucking kid anymore, but he was acting like one and he hated himself for it.

Levi took his pillow and smashed it over his face, smothering himself as he yelled into layers of fabric and down. He yelled so hard his muscles were sore when he finally released all the tension in his neck and arms, throwing his pillow away from himself to smack loudly into the wall.

He panted when his lungs met fresh air and stared at the ceiling above him.

“Just tell him. Just fucking tell him,” Levi groaned at himself in defeat. “Don’t say another goddamn thing to him until you tell him.”

He gave up trying to sleep after the first hour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, someone's being a Salty Stan, now isn't he?


	11. THIS IS NOT AN UPDATE (well, it sort of is)

I’m sorry if I got your hopes up that this was a new chapter, because it’s not. I also didn’t want to be that asshole to update with an author’s note, but here we are. Also, feel free to just ignore this completely.

I know I keep apologizing every single chapter for taking so long and I keep saying “I’ll update soon, I’ll update soon,” but really, I don’t know how long I will take. I really don’t. I want to apologize one more time though, considering this wait has been far longer than the last, so I’m sorry for that.

It’s taking me a long time to write because my physical and mental health isn’t in any good place to really be writing. I’ve been in and out of the hospital and I’m in chronic pain everyday without all the standing I do at work, which makes it worse.

To be truthful, I’m finding that I don’t like writing or this fic much anymore, so that is also making it difficult to work on it. It’s hard to write when I have absolutely no motivation to do so. I started writing as a therapeutic activity but it’s taking a huge toll on me and I’ve ended up hating almost everything I’ve written.

I have started maybe ten multi-chapter fics, including this one (I have not published any of the others), and I don’t want to abandon them because I absolutely hate when artist’s abandon their things. But I don’t know how to do that until I become more confident and comfortable with my writing, and I don’t know if or when that will happen. I’ll at least try to finish this fic, since there might be six or so chapters left, but I’ve deleted more of Ch11 than is still in the doc and the doc is still about 10k, and it’s kind of stuck in limbo right now. I don't want to just force it out and post it if it's just going to be worse crap than I already feel like it is.

Sorry for this ramble. I guess long-story short: I can try to work on this fic, but saying it will be soon probably isn’t realistic. I’m struggling with everything, so I’m really sorry if you end up disappointed.

Thank you guys for reading up until this point and for all your kind comments. All of that meant a lot to me <3

-Ghost


End file.
